Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

In the early 1700s, Russian tzar Peter The Great introduced a measure of distance, called “arshin”. He standardized the arshin at exactly 28 English inches. But instead of inches, Russians used a different measure, which was called “vershok”. One arshin contained 16 of those. Nowadays, the height of most computer, audio, and video equipment is measured in units called “U”. 1 U is equal to 1.75 inchines. The funny thing is that 1.75 inches is exactly 1 vershok. So, traditional Russian units are more convenient for measuring today’s equipment, although no one uses those units anymore. For example, a 3.5 inch floppy disk is 2 vershoks and 5.25 inch floppy disk is 3 vershoks.

You can use “A Dictionary of Units of Measurement” website to check if this story is correct. Maybe you can even discover a new one…