The Anomaly Research Zone of Progressa Island is a massive, safe nation, ruled by Trofim Lysenko with an iron fist, and notable for its strictly enforced bedtime, frequent executions, and public floggings. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 4.461 billion inhabitants of the Island of Progress are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The large, corrupt, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Magnitoshakhtinsk. The average income tax rate is 92.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Progressa Islandian economy, worth 833 trillion Shastis a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched black market in Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Book Publishing. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an impressive 186,842 Shastis, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

One-man canoes fitted with the latest tracking technology leave no room for one man, stony-faced prosecutors play loud gangster rap music during court proceedings, hazmat suits are a common Progressa Islandian garb, and cotton candy made from genuine cotton cellulose doesn't quite satisfy. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Progressa Island's national animal is the Owl, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution, and its national religion is The Cult of Personality of Lysenko.

Progressa Island is ranked 40,986^th in the world and 81^st in The League for Highest Foreign Aid Spending, scoring 733.17 on the Clooney Contribution Index.