Charkas to Liters (charka to L)

1 charka equals 0.1229941 liters exactly.

1 charka = 0.1229941 liters

How to convert charkas to liters

To convert charkas to liters, multiply the number of charkas by 0.1229941. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply liters by 8.130471299 (rounded).

liters = charkas × 0.1229941

Example: 10 charkas = 1.229941 liters.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

Approximate value. Standards for the charka varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Charka (charka)

Russian (Imperial)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

One hundredth of a vedro, about 123 mL. The traditional Russian shot of vodka.

Charka is a Russian word for a small drinking cup, and the Russian Wikipedia article says the word reached Russian from Turkish. Ornate silver and enamelled charkas for strong spirits were part of everyday Russian life in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the oldest example in the Kremlin Armory dates from 1515.

As a measure, the charka was one hundredth of a vedro, or 7.5 cubic inches, which comes to about 123 mL. It sat in a chain of small liquor measures: half a charka was a shkalik of about 61.5 mL, two charkas made a chetushka of about 246 mL, and ten made a kruzhka of about 1.23 L. The English Wikipedia table of Russian units uses these same fractions of the vedro.

Russia fixed these measures relative to English cubic inches under Peter the Great, so the charka is a precise figure on paper even if real cups varied. The metric system replaced it in the 1920s, yet the word survives as the normal Russian name for a shot glass, and a charka is still close to a double shot today.

1 charka = 0.1229941 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Obsolete Russian units of measurement; Russian Wikipedia: Чарка

Liter (L)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One cubic decimeter (1,000 cm³). The everyday metric unit of volume for drinks, fuel and cooking.

The liter was born in revolutionary France. In 1795 it was introduced as a republican unit and defined as one cubic decimeter, while the gram was tied to a cubic centimeter of water. The name comes from the older French litron, itself descended from a Byzantine Greek unit of weight, not volume. A small revision of the decimeter in 1798 left the first liter about 1.000974 of today's cubic decimeter, and in 1879 the international metric authorities adopted the liter with the symbol l.

The liter then took a strange detour. In 1901 it was redefined as the space taken up by one kilogram of pure water at its densest, which made it about 1.000028 cubic decimeters, and that muddled definition lasted until 1964, when it was restored to exactly one cubic decimeter. A capital L was added as an alternative symbol in 1979 because a lowercase l is easy to mistake for the digit 1, and NIST says L is the symbol to use in the United States. A liter of water is close to a kilogram, which is why a one-liter bottle feels like a kilo in the hand.

The liter is the reference unit for volume on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 5: units outside the SI

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