There are many Russian sayings in which the word "arshin" occurs. Even if you do not know the meaning of this word, but remember Tyutchev's poem, which says that it is impossible to measure Russia with a yardstick, it immediately becomes clear that we are talking about a measure of length.
All measurements are in person
Since ancient times, people have made measurements based on the structure of their own body. All ancient measures of length known in Russia are somehow connected with the length of any human limbs. The name "elbow" or "palm" speaks for itself. And in foreign languages the same picture is observed. For example, "inch" is literally translated from Dutch as "thumb", and English "foot" is nothing more than "foot". Depending on the purpose of the measurement - whether it is necessary to measure something small, or comparable to a person, or large distances - the units of measurement were chosen.
The basic concept of the Russian account in the middle of the sixteenth century was the vershok, the length of which in today's units is 4.445 cm. Why such a fractional, and not an integer? This will be discussed a little later. If aask the question “arshin - how many vershoks is it?”, you need to go through the next chain. Four inches made one quarter. Four quarters were arshin. These ratios allow you to say exactly how many centimeters are in an arshin. Exactly 71, 12. And exactly three arshins in total equaled sazhens. And a thousand sazhens made up one verst. Then, under Peter the Great, the number of fathoms in a verst was reduced to five hundred, which was a little more than the current kilometer, but this is not about that now.
Europeanization of arshin
When asked "arshin - how many palms are these?" it should be clarified that the “palm” when taking measurements was the width of the palm without the thumb. And exactly seven palms made up one arshin. An inch was the width of a grown man's thumb. Peter the Great, adjusting all of Russia to European standards, brought all units of the Russian account into proportion to inches. This unit of measurement was the minimum in many European countries. Its length was 2.54 centimeters. It was this concept that Peter the Great brought from Europe, reducing the minimum measurement in the Russian account. And if the arshin consisted of sixteen inches, then to the question “arshin - how many inches is it?” from the eighteenth century they began to answer: "Twenty-eight." That is, one vershok equaled 1.75 inches.
When the arshin appeared
It is not clear at what time the concept of "arshin" entered the Russian language. The concepts of "elbow" and "span" were used as early as the twelfth century, "sazhen" - a century earlier. Mentions of the "arshin", as well as of the "top", first appearonly in the sixteenth century, although they also became firmly established in the lexicon. What is arshin equal to? Initially, this was called the length of the arm - the distance from the fingertips to the shoulder. And this concept - either of Turkish or Persian origin - over time displaced the "elbow" from everyday life. But neither the size of the cubit nor the size of the arshin was officially fixed. This allowed the merchant class to measure materials with their own arshin, which gave the expression a nominal meaning. Therefore, the second tsar from the Romanov dynasty - Alexei Mikhailovich - in order to avoid scandals and for the sake of replenishing his own treasury, finally answered the question "arshin - how much is it?". He introduced the standard measure - state arshin.
This measure was branded on both sides with a government seal and was sold very expensive for those times - seventy kopecks per unit. This was one of the reasons for the first rebellion during the reign of this king. It is curious that in the old days, when measuring human height, the counting began after two arshins, that is, it was the minimum height of a normal adult. That is, they did not say that a person has a height of two arshins and ten inches, but simply ten inches.
Global standardization
When the volume of commodity relations between countries increased significantly, standardization of measurements was required. The French were the first in this business, who themselves only at the end of the eighteenth century introduced the standard of length - “meter” into their everyday life. Having legally fixed this concept throughout its country, France initiatedsigning of the Metric Convention. This convention was signed by representatives of seventeen leading world powers, including Russia.
After that, the meter gradually became an international unit of measurement, displacing local units. Official ratios of international units and local ones were laid down, for example, it was precisely indicated how many meters in an arshin. In Russia, they finally switched to the metric system after the 1917 revolution. Only in sayings and in oral speech the old names sometimes slip through - span, arshin, verst.
