Pood

Reading notes

• Marriage Ten or Fifteen Years On §2 two or three poods of hair

  A pood is an old Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kg (36 lb); "two or three poods of hair" is comic hyperbole mocking exaggerated fashionable coiffures.

• The Story of a Commercial Venture §29 the pood

  A pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight, about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds); that Sidorov's old stock of serious literature, including the once-ceremonially-displayed Pisarev, ends up priced by the pood like scrap or produce is the story's final, driest joke about what became of his ideals.

• The Sheet §9 by the pood

  A pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds); the housekeeper sells stolen paper by weight to scrap dealers.

• Мужики §74 thirty kopecks the pood

  The pood, a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds), was the standard unit for selling hay and grain; old Osip's grievance is that he sold his hay at this price of his own free will and was struck by the village elder for it anyway.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 December 1889. Moscow. §2 poods

  "пуды" ("poods"), a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight (about 16.4 kg/36 lb), already established in this corpus as (first appearance yarmarka); used here hyperbolically of the sheer physical mass of paper Chekhov has covered with hack writing, transliterated rather than converted, consistent with the corpus's established treatment of this measure.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 17 December 1891. Moscow. §5 a hundred pood of paper

  A comic exaggeration of Chekhov's writing output for the year, using the pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight (about 16.4 kg / 36 lb per pood) -- "a hundred pood" comes to roughly 1,640 kg (3,600 lb) of paper scribbled through, in the same vein of self-mocking productivity boasts Chekhov makes elsewhere in the correspondence.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 28 February 1892. Moscow. §6 60 poods of baggage

  "пудов" ("poods"), a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight (about 16.4 kg/36 lb), already established in this corpus as; used here of the literal bulk of household goods shipped ahead to the new estate.

• On Official Business §27 poods

  A pre-revolutionary unit of weight, about 16.4 kilograms, used on the assessment forms Loshadin distributes for recording each household's grain harvest.

• Russian Coal §55 poods

  A pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight, about 16.4 kilograms; Alpatov's unsold stockpile is measured at fifteen million poods.

• An Event §21 a whole pood of sweets or a thousand ten-kopeck pieces

  A pood (пуд) is a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds); paired here with a thousand ten-kopeck coins (гривенники) as comically outsized hypothetical wealth a child would still refuse in exchange for a kitten.

• Big Volodya and Little Volodya §15 thousand-pood bell

  A pood is a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kg (36 lb); a "thousand-pood" bell (roughly 16 metric tons) is an enormous convent or cathedral bell, Chekhov's hyperbole for the sheer physical weight and depth of its toll.

• The Fair §49 poods

  The pood, a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds); used here for comic exaggeration of how much the strongwoman lifts with her braided hair.

• The Problem §19 7 poods 24 pounds

  A pood was a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kilograms (36 pounds); the mother-in-law's precise, almanac-style weight (roughly 125 kg / 275 lb total) is the joke's punchline of mock-scientific exactness.

• Problems of a Madman Mathematician §5 poods

  A pood (пуд) is a pre-revolutionary Russian unit of weight equal to about 16.4 kg (roughly 36 pounds); a fixture of old Russian arithmetic textbooks, which loved word problems full of poods, arshins, and other imperial-Russian units.