A choron is turned and carved from a single block of wood, usually birch, into a tall narrow cup that stands considerably higher than it is wide. Its outer surface is worked into horizontal bands of incised ornament, ridges, notches, chevrons and rows of small repeated cuts, so that the whole body is banded from foot to rim. Small ones are made for individual use. Large ceremonial ones can be very substantial, and these often stand not on a single foot but on three legs, which are described as the hooves of a horse.
The horse reference is not decorative. What a choron holds is kumys, mare's milk fermented into a mildly alcoholic drink, and among the Sakha the horse, the milk and the summer are bound together in a way that a single vessel form gathers up. The banded carving is read in the same register, as a stack of levels rather than as a pattern.
Because the vessel is turned from one piece with no joints, size is limited by the block available, which makes the largest ceremonial chorons genuinely difficult objects to make. They are treated accordingly, kept between festivals rather than used through the year.
Size varies enormously. A personal choron may hold a cupful. Festival examples made for a public Ysyakh can be waist high and take two people to lift when full, and those are commissioned rather than kept casually.