(Plural, sazheni) In Russia, a unit of length. Also romanized as sagen, sagene and saschen; in the 19th century, sashine and sasheen.
Early in the 18th century, as part of his program
for modernizing the nation the Tsar Peter the Great issued a ukase redefining
traditional Russian units of length in terms of the English foot. The sazhen was
made equal to 7 English feet (about 2.134 meters). 
This legal definition was repeated in later years, for example, in a ukase
issued on 11 October 1835.
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