Convert Arshin (Аршин) to miles

Fixed against the English foot

The 1835 reform of Russian weights and measures tied the entire system to the English foot, defining the arshin as 28 inches exactly — 0.7112 m. Three arshin make one sazhen (2.1336 m), and the arshin divides into sixteen vershok of 44.45 mm each.

The exactness matters: unlike most historical units, imperial Russian measures convert without approximation, so a nineteenth-century Russian figure can be rendered in metres with full confidence provided the reform date is respected.

Cloth, stature and literature

The arshin was the standard for selling cloth, and the wooden arshin stick was as much a fixture of a Russian shop as the yardstick was of an English one. Textile output in imperial statistics is reported in arshins, and converting those series to metres is the first step in any comparison with Western European production data.

Human height was quoted in vershok above two arshin — so "twelve vershok" means two arshin plus twelve vershok, about 1.956 m. Readers of nineteenth-century Russian novels routinely misread these descriptions as absurdly small people, because the implicit two arshin base is never stated in the text.

Its place in the Russian system

Above the arshin: the sazhen (three arshin) for land and construction, and the verst (500 sazhen, 1.0668 km) for roads. Below: the vershok for fine work. Area came from the square sazhen, with 2,400 of them making the desyatina.

Soviet metrication in 1918–1927 retired all of them officially, but arshin and vershok remain in idiom, and in the technical literature of textiles and construction produced before the changeover.

Converting Russian imperial figures

Apply 0.7112 m exactly, and note the 1835 reform: pre-reform arshins existed as local standards and were not uniform. For anything before that, the figure is an estimate.

When converting stature descriptions, always add the two-arshin base before converting, and say in a footnote that you have done so. It is the single most common error in translating Russian nineteenth-century sources.

Cloth, height and the Russian ladder

The arshin of exactly 71.12 centimetres — sixteen vershok — was fixed against the English inch in the 1835 reform, which is why it has a clean value. It was the cloth measure of the Russian empire, and textile records, tailoring manuals and factory output figures are written in it.

It also measured people. Human height in nineteenth-century Russian records is conventionally given as vershoks above two arshins, so a man recorded as 'ten vershok' is 142.24 plus 44.45 centimetres, about 187 centimetres tall. Reading the vershok figure alone as a full height produces an absurd number, and it is one of the most common misreadings of Russian military and conscription records.

The sub-units matter for cloth. A vershok is one sixteenth of an arshin, about 4.445 centimetres, and bolt widths in factory records are given in vershoks. Because the vershok is small, a transcription error of one unit is easy to miss and shifts a fabric width by only a few centimetres — enough to be wrong, not enough to look wrong.

Surveying used a different member of the same family. Long distances were measured in sazhen of three arshins and versts of five hundred sazhen, so a route recorded in versts converts through the arshin exactly, and any imperial map scale can be reduced to metres without approximation once the chain is followed in order.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Heights in vershok assume an unstated base of two arshin (1.4224 m) — omitting it produces impossibly short people.
• Pre-1835 arshins were local and not uniform; the exact 0.7112 m applies only after the reform.
• Sixteen vershok make an arshin, not ten — the Russian imperial system is not decimal.

Questions people ask about the Arshin (Аршин)

How long is one arshin?

Exactly 28 English inches, or 0.7112 m, following the 1835 Russian weights and measures reform.

What does a height given in vershok mean?

It is vershok above a base of two arshin. "Ten vershok" means 1.4224 m plus 10 × 44.45 mm, about 1.867 m.

How does the arshin relate to the sazhen and verst?

Three arshin make a sazhen (2.1336 m), and 500 sazhen make a verst (1.0668 km). The arshin divides into sixteen vershok.