May 31st, Saratov, 10 a.m.
Countless freed serfs gathered near the factories, squatting by the roadside, eyes fixed on the passing carriages. Whenever a carriage stopped and a well-dressed man disembarked and surveyed them, they would rush up en masse, scrambling for the chance to work.
Perhaps due to the overabundance of people needing work, the wages in Saratov had dropped from the normal forty gobies per day to ten gobies per day.
Converted into the currency of the Kingdom of Windsor, it was a mere one penny and one franc per day—not even enough to buy a decent loaf of bread. To fill their stomachs, they could only afford to buy potatoes from street vendors. Those potatoes were as small as thumbs, undesirable and inferior, and half a pound could be bought for ten gobies.
Half a pound of potatoes—how could that feed a family?
If there were even more children in the family…
