The Discovery of Muscovy

by Richard Hakluyt

Written by John Hasse in the year 1554.

Forasmuch as it is most necessary for all merchants which seek to have traffic in any strange regions, first to acquaint themselves with the coins of those lands with which they do intend to join in traffic, and how they are called from the valuation of the highest piece to the lowest, and in what sort they make their payments, as also what their common weights and measures be. For these causes I have thought good to write something thereof, according to mine own knowledge and experience, to the end that the merchants of that new adventure may the better understand how the wealth of that new frequented trade will arise.

First, it is to be noted that the Emperor of Russia hath no other coins than silver in all his land which goeth for payment amongst merchants; yet, notwithstanding, there is a coin of copper, which serveth for the relief of the poor in Moscow, and nowhere else, and that is but only for quas, water, and fruit—as nuts, apples, and such like. The name of which money is called pole or poles, of which poles there go to the least of the silver coins eighteen. But I will not stand upon this, because it is no current money amongst merchants.

Of silver coins there be these sorts of pieces: the least is a poledenga; the second, a denga; the third, nowgrote, which is as much to say in English, as halfpenny, penny, and twopence; and for other valued money than this there is none. There are oftentimes there coins of gold, but they come out of foreign countries; whereof there is no ordinary valuation, but they pass according to the agreement of merchants.

Their order in summing of money is this: as we say in England, halfpenny, penny, shilling, and pound, so say they, poledenga, denga, altine, and rubble (rouble). There goeth two poledengas to a denga, six dengaes to an altine, and twenty-three altines and two dengaes to a rubble.

Concerning the weights of Russia, they are these. There are two sorts of pounds in use amongst them—the one great, the other small. The great pound is just two small pounds; they call the great weight by the name of beasemar, and the small they call the skallawaight. With this small weight they weigh their silver coins, of which the Emperor hath commanded to put to every small pound three rubbles of silver; and with the same weight they weigh all grocery wares, and almost all other wares, which come into the land, except those which they weigh by the pode, as hops, salt, iron, lead, tin, and batrie, with divers others. Notwithstanding, they used to weigh batrie more often by the small weight than by the great.

Whensoever you find the prices of your wares rated by the pode, consider that to be the great weight, and the pound to be small. Also they divide the small pound into forty-eight parts, and they call the eight-and-fortieth part a slotnike, by the which slotnike the retailers sell their wares out of their shops, as goldsmiths, grocers, silk-sellers, and such other, like as we do use to retail by the ounce. And as for their great weight, which they call the beasemar, they sell by pode or ship pound. The pode doth contain of the great weight, forty pounds; and of the small, eighty. There go ten podes to a ship pound.

Yet you must consider that their great weight is not full with ours; for I take not their great pound to be full thirteen ounces, but above twelve I think it be. But for your just proof, weigh six rubbles of Russian money with our pound weight, and then shall you see what it lacketh; for six rubbles of Russia is, by the Emperor’s standard, the great pound. So that I think it the next way to know the just weight as well of the great pound as of the small.

There is another weight needful to be known, which is the weight of Wardhouse; for so much as they weigh all their dry fish by weight, which weight is the basemere as they of Russia do use, notwithstanding there is another sort in it. The names of those weights are these: the marke pound, the great pound, the wee and the ship pound. The marke pound is to be understood as our pound, and their great is twenty-four of their marke pound; the wee is three great pound; and eight wee is a ship pound.

Now, concerning their measures. As they have two sorts of weights, so they have also two sorts of measures, wherewith they measure cloth, both linen and woollen. They call the one an areshine, and the other a locut. The areshine I take to be as much as the Flanders ell, and their locut half an English yard. With their areshine they may mete all such sorts of cloths as cometh into the land, and with the locut all such cloth, both linen and woollen, as they make themselves. And whereas we used to give yard and inch, or yard and handfull, they do give nothing but bare measure.