In Russia, the Russian system of measures was used to determine the area, length, weight, volume, distance.
About the system
The dimensional system was based on the person and his physical abilities. For example, a measure of weight is how much he can lift on his shoulders.
The system has changed several times throughout history. New values were added to it or existing ones underwent changes. For example, a verst, which in the 19th century was equated to 500 sazhens, was twice as long according to the law of 1649 - 1000 sazhens.
In 1899 there was a transition to the metric system of measures.
Drink in moderation
A fairly common expression. But for everyone there is a measure. A glass is enough for someone, another will drink until he falls. But the word "measure" has several meanings. One of them is the immediate amount, 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 garns or one quadrangle. In the modern sense - 26, 24 years old.
Having learned this, many say that the ancestors liked to drink. But the measure was not for wine or liquid. She belonged to the classloose, in particular, bread measures.
How liquid was measured
The barrel was considered the largest wine measure. How much is this? 1 barrel contained 40 buckets. If you translate this volume into liters, you get a value of about 491.96 liters.
The bucket was another of the common measuring instruments, it was also a container. It could be made of wood, metal or leather. Traditionally, it was in the form of a cylinder with a handle so that it could be lifted and carried. It was believed that a woman could carry two buckets at once. Often a yoke was used for convenience. One bucket had a volume of 12 liters, in rare cases - 15 liters.
Another unit of volume in this system was the bottle. Despite the fact that there were two of them - for vodka and for wine, only wine was recognized as measured. It was equal to approximately 0.75–0.77 liters, which, in turn, was equal to the sixteenth part of a bucket or three glasses.
Shkalik, damask and half-damask served, among other things, to measure alcohol poured in taverns. First of all, it is a vodka measure. How much is it in liters? One scale contained 61.5 ml. The shtof contained 20 scales and was equal to approximately 1.23 liters. The scale was also understood as the dishes into which vodka was poured in drinking establishments.
What was the length measured in
In Russia, the fathom was the most common. But it can be called, rather, a general category, since there were a large number of sazhens. Each of them had not only its name, but also its size. If speak aboutthe most commonly used measure is how much in the metric system? The longest was the "oblique sazhen". It was defined as the distance from the toe of the foot to the fingers of the opposite hand extended upwards. In the metric system, it was equal to 2.48 m., 6 m. At the same time, fathoms did not correlate with each other in any way, did not have any multiplicity.
Based on the fact that each person has individual physical data, special wooden "warehouses" and ropes were used for construction, division of land and measuring the required amount of goods.
How the weight was determined
The need to establish the weight arose due to trade relations. There were several most common categories. One of the famous ones is a pood, which is 16.38 kg. But very often the hryvnia was used. How much was this measure of weight in kilograms? It was equal to 410 gr. or 96 spools.
Hryvnia was used to designate two values - money and weight. It was widely used by merchants. The hryvnia was used to measure a wide variety of products. And also for silver and gold. The hryvnia was replaced by the pound.
Hryvnia was usually used in retail trade. For large weight categories used in the wholesale segment, Berkovets was used. Mostoften used to weigh wax or honey. The name of this weight category has an interesting origin. It comes from the name of the island of Bjork. Merchant ships left in its direction, on which barrels of wax were placed. Its maximum weight, which a person could single-handedly roll onto a ship, is how much? The measure was 163.8 kg. Mentions of Berkovets were found in the documents of the XII century.
Measurable system in Russia was rather complicated. It had many gradations. In addition, a measured unit with the same name could have a different expression in different areas.
