A verst or werst (Russian verstá, верста) is an obsolete Russian unit of length. It is defined as being 500 sazhen long, which makes a verst equal to 1.0668 kilometres (3,500 feet).
In the English language, verst is singular with the normal plural versts. In Russian, the nominative singular is versta, but the form usually used with numbers is genitive plural verst — 10 verst, 25 verst, etc. — whence the English form.
A mezhevaya versta (border verst) is twice as long as a verst.
"The verst of the 17th century was 700 sazhens or 1.49 km as against the 500 sazhens or 1.06 km it became at the time of Peter the Great".[1] The Russian Wiki mentions several other old values.
A poem by John Berger, from his book And our Faces My Heart, Brief as Photos:
A sailor receives a letter
from a thousand versts away.
His wife has written
that in their house
beyond the cliffs she is happy.
And this is of her letter
during evenings with girls
in untranslatable ports,
through the sea of the months
persuades the cursing sailor
that his never-ending voyage
will end.
In Finland, virsta was originally 1.069 km according to the Swedish standard, but the Russian verst (1.0669 km) replaced it after annexation to the Russian Empire in 1809. Virsta was originally 600 sylis (fathoms, 1.781 m), but then changed to 500 syli, since the Russian syli was longer, 2.134 m. A derived unit was peninkulma = 10 virsta (see Finnish units of measurement). Metrication replaced virsta with the kilometer in the 1880s.[2]