Pood

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

40 funts, about 16.38 kg. Used for grain, metals and trade goods in Russia into the 20th century; kettlebells are still sold in poods.

1 pood = 16.3806872 kilograms (exactly).

About the pood

Pood is a Russian borrowing from the Latin pondus, meaning weight, and it is one of the oldest named Russian units: a Novgorod charter of 1134 to 1135 already mentions it. For centuries merchants quoted grain, metals, hemp and tallow by the pood, and grain output was still reported in poods on a Soviet stamp in 1959.

From 1899 it was set at about 16.38 kg, and the figure used here is 16.3807 kg, or 40 funts and about 36.1 pounds. Formal abolition came in the 1920s, though the word stayed in common use for decades afterwards, and the idiom sto pudov, a hundred poods, now means absolute certainty.

The best-known survivor is the kettlebell. Traditional Russian kettlebells are made in multiples and fractions of 16 kg, one pood, so a 24 kg bell is called a pood and a half.

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

Pood conversion chart

1 pood expressed in every other weight & mass unit:

More Russian (Imperial) units

• zolotnik (weight & mass)
• funt (Russian pound) (weight & mass)
• vershok (length)
• arshin (length)
• sazhen (length)
• verst (length)
• charka (volume)
• shtof (volume)
• vedro (volume)

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