How big can be a brick? It's always a trade off between usability and production expenses.

In 1547 there was a big fire in wooden Moscow, the city should be rebuilt in stone and bricks, but the sizes of the bricks from different suppliers were also different. It was inconvenient.

In 1584 Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) established the Stoneworks Prikaz (Prikaz Kamennykh Del) - an institution that controlled the state construction industry. From that moment the first standard for brick size in Russia - so called “sovereign big brick” - was introduced. It allowed to use the building sizes to calculate the required quantity of bricks.

The sovereign big brick sizes were 312 х 134 х 89 mm ( 7 x 3 x 2 vershok). Vershok (or tip) is an old Russian measure of length that equals the length of the main phalanx of the index finger (44,45 mm = 1.75 inches). One layer of brickwork is about 100 mm ( 4 inches ).

The "Sovereign big brick" was about 1.5 times bigger than the standard brick. It was a trade-off between usability and expenses. Bigger bricks are cheaper to produce: you save on expensive hand molding and drying. At the same time bricklayers should be able to hold the brick in hand. Later the brick size became smaller. Today the standard is 250 х 120 х 65 mm.

The "Sovereign big brick" can be found in old Smolensk Kremlin walls and towers.

Source: iosif-vm.ru , КоноровА.В., 1956. – С. 219

Photos: TatianaNP / CC BY-SA 3.0

Ivan IV. The Great State Book of 1672