Arshin: how many centimeters are there? And if in inches?

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 by arshin, it immediately becomes clear that this is a measure of length.

All dimensions are in man

Since ancient times, man has made measurements, relying on the structure of his own body. All the 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 a "thumb", and English "foot" is nothing more than a "foot". Depending on the purpose of the measurement - whether it is necessary to measure something small, or comparable to a person, or large distances - units of measurement were chosen.

The basic concept of the Russian account in the middle of the sixteenth century was the top, the length of which in today's units is 4,445 cm. Why is this fractional rather than an integer? This will be discussed a little later. If you ask the question "arshin - how many verses are these?", It is necessary to go through the following chain. Four peaks were one quarter. Four quarters were arshins. These ratios allow you to accurately say how many centimeters in arshin. Exactly 71.12. And exactly three arshins in total were equal to sazhens. And a thousand fathoms were one verst. Then, under Peter the First, the number of fathoms in the verst was reduced to five hundred, which was slightly more than the current kilometer, but this is not the issue now.

Europeanization of arshin

When the question "arshin - how much is it palms?" Should be clarified that the "palm" in the measurement was called the width of the palm without thumb. And exactly seven palms made up one arshin. Inch was the width of a thumb of an adult male. Peter the First, urging all of Russia to European standards, brought all the units of the Russian account in relation to the inches. This unit of measurement was minimal in many European countries. Its length was 2.54 centimeters. It was this concept that Peter the First brought from Europe, having reduced the minimal dimension in the Russian account. And if the arshin consisted of sixteen vertices, then to the question "arshin - how many are inches?" From the eighteenth century began to respond: "Twenty-eight." That is one verst was equal to 1.75 inches.

When arshin appeared

It is not clear at what time the concept of "arshin" entered into Russian. The concepts of "elbow" and "span" were used in the twelfth century, "sazhen" - a century earlier. Mention of the "arshin", as well as the "top", first appear only in the sixteenth century, although they have firmly entered the lexicon. What is arshin? Originally called the length of the hand - the distance from the fingertips to the shoulder. And this concept - whether of Turkish or Persian origin - eventually supplanted the "elbow" from everyday life. But neither the size of the elbow nor the size of the arch was officially recorded. This allowed the merchant class to measure materials with its own yardstick, which gave the expression a nominal meaning. Therefore, the second king of the Romanov dynasty - Alexei Mikhailovich - in order to avoid scandals and to replenish his own treasury, the question "arshin - how much is this?" Was finally answered. He introduced a standard measure - official arshin.

This measure was branded on both sides by official 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 growth the score began after two arshins, that is, it was the minimum height of a normal adult person. That is, they did not say that a person has an increase of two arshins and ten versts, but simply ten versts.

World Standardization

When the volume of commodity relations between countries increased significantly, standardization of measurements was required. The first in this case were the French, who themselves only at the end of the eighteenth century introduced into their everyday life a standard of length - "meter". Having secured legislation on the territory of the whole country, France initiated the signing 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. The official ratios of international units to local ones were laid, for example, it was specified exactly how many meters in the arshin. In Russia, finally passed to the metric system after the 1917 revolution. Only in proverbs and in oral speech old names sometimes skip - span, arshin, verst.