Desyatiny

A desyatina (Russian: десятина) is an obsolete Russian unit of land area. It is approximately equivalent to 2.7 acres, 1.09 hectares, or 10,925 square meters. The term derives from the Russian word desyat, meaning "ten," because the original definition was linked to a specific length of ten sazhens.

Historically, several variations of the desyatina existed. The most common and widely used was the kazennaya desyatina or government desyatina, which equaled 2400 square sazhens. Other variants included the khozyayskaya desyatina (farmer's desyatina) and the sotenaya desyatina, each having a slightly different size. The kazennaya desyatina was the standard unit used for land surveying and official records in Russia.

The desyatina was abolished as an official unit of measurement in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution, replaced by the metric system. While no longer officially used, the term may still be encountered in historical texts and local contexts when referring to land areas from the pre-Soviet era. Its approximate equivalent in hectares (1.09 ha) is often used for easier comparison with modern land measurements.