The collection of the Sheltozero Veps Ethnographic Museum named after Rurik Petrovich Lonin includes a handmade chetverik. The chetverik, an ancient measure for granular materials, was donated to the museum by Vladimir Vasilyevich Antipov, a native of the village of Sheltozero, who lived on Goristaya Street, in the small village of Gamova Gora.

The chetverik was precisely defined in the Decree of October 11, 1835 on “The system of Russian weights and measures” as a unit of capacity for granular materials. The chetverik presented in the museum’s collection was made in the middle of the 19th century from a single piece of oval-shaped wood, the bottom was made of a separate solid board with dashes on the outside. This item was used in everyday life to store various foods and liquids, as well as to pickle mushrooms.

The main areas of economic activity of the Veps were agriculture and animal husbandry. Arable farming was used, which required physical effort and a large number of workers. A significant part of the arable land was sown with grain crops. By tradition, all sowing work began on St. Nicholas Day and lasted up to ten weeks on the countdown from the beginning of sowing. Starting from Ilyin’s day, spring crops were collected, which were ground with the help of flails. Later, drying and threshing began in the drying barns. The resulting harvest was stored in barns. It was during this period that the chetverik was used to measure volume.

The Veps had many signs, rituals and prohibitions that were strictly observed during harvest and storage. The territories inhabited by the Veps were not always conducive to agriculture, so they were forced to adapt to any inconveniences and master new types of activities. In the spring, with the appearance of foliage, the Veps cut down trees in the forest — those were burned the next year. The ash was used as fertilizer, and the fire destroyed the weeds. The land was plowed. In the first year, turnips were usually planted, in the second barley or rye was sown, and in the third year — oats. The Veps took special care of flax crops: after the Feast of the Intercession in October, when the flax processing was over throughout the village, boys and girls took out flax peelings into the field, put them into heaps and lit bonfires. Holding hands and chanting spells, they ran around the campfires to make the flax harvest a success.