Measure - this is how much? Measuring system and main categories

In Russia, the Russian system of measures was used to determine the area, length, weight, volume, distance.

About the system

The measurement system was based on the person and his physical abilities. For example, a measure of weight - this is how much he can lift on his shoulders.

For the whole history of the system several times changed. New values were added to it, or changes already made. For example, a verst, which in the XIX century equated to 500 sagenki, according to the law of 1649 was twice as long - 1000 fathoms.

In 1899 there was a transition to the metric system of measures.

"It is necessary to drink in moderation"

Quite a common expression. But for everyone there is a measure. Someone has enough glass, the other will drink until it falls. But the word "measure" has several meanings. One of them is the direct quantity, which is optimal for some situation or person. But she has a very specific expression. Then 1 measure is how much? It is comparable to eight heads or one chetverik. In the modern sense - 26.24 liters.

Having learned this, many say that their ancestors liked to drink. But the measure was not intended for wine and not for liquid. It belonged to the category of loose, in particular, breadsticks.

How the liquid was measured

The barrel was considered the largest wine measure. How much is this? 1 barrel accommodated 40 buckets. If you translate this volume into liters, you get a value of about 491.96 liters.

The bucket was one of the most common measuring instruments, it was also a container. It could be made of wood, metal or leather. Traditionally it had the shape of a cylinder with a handle in order to be lifted and carried. It was believed that a woman could wear two buckets at once. Often, for convenience, the rocker was used. One bucket had a volume equal to 12 liters, in rare cases - 15 liters.

Another unit of volume in this system was a bottle. Despite the fact that there were two of them - for vodka and for wine, only wine was recognized as measured. It was about 0.75-0.77 liters, which in turn was equal to the sixteenth part of the bucket or three glasses.

The shkalik, shtof and half-shtof served also for measuring alcohol, poured in taverns. First of all, it is a vodka measure. This is how many in liters? In one scale was 61.5 ml. Shtof contained 20 scales and was approximately 1.23 liters. Under the scale was also understood dishes, in which they poured vodka in drinking establishments.

In what was the length measured

In Russia, the largest prevalence was sazhen. But it can be called, rather, a general category, as there was a large number of fathoms. Each of them had not only its name, but also its size. If we talk about the most frequently used measures, how much is in the metric system? The longest was the "slanting sazhen". It was defined as the distance from the toe of the foot to the fingers of an elongated opposite arm. In the metric system, it was 2.48 m. The "swing" was equal to the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the other, which were set apart or 1.76 m. "Tsarskaya" was 197.4 m, "official" - 217 , 6 m. At the same time, the fathoms did not relate to each other, they did not have any multiplicity.

Based on the fact that each person has individual physical data, special wooden "folds" and ropes were used for the construction, division of land and the measurement of the required quantity of goods.

How to determine the weight

The need to establish weight has arisen because of trade relations. There were several most common categories. One of the known - pood, is 16.38 kg. But very often the hryvnia was used. How much did this weight measure in kilograms? It was 410 grams. Or 96 goldsmiths.

The hryvnia was used to denote two quantities - monetary and weight. It was widely used by traders. The hryvnia was used to measure a wide variety of products. And also for silver and gold. On the hryvnia came the pound.

Hryvnia was usually used in retail trade. At large weight categories used in the wholesale segment, the Berkovets were used. The most commonly used for weighing wax or honey. The name of this weight category has an interesting origin. It came from the name of the island Bjerk. In its direction merchant ships left on which barrels with wax were placed. The maximum weight that a person could single-handedly sail on a ship is how much? The measure was 163.8 kg. The references to Berkovets were found in the documents of the 12th century.

The measurement system in Russia was quite complicated. There were many gradations in it. In addition, a measuring unit with one name could have different expressions in different areas.