How many time zones in russia

Russia , the largest country in the world by area, has 11 time zones. Before the introduction of time zones in the country, every part of Russia had its solar time. According to their solar time, Moscow was about 2 hours, 30 minutes, and 17 seconds ahead of the UTC. During that time, Russia was using the Julian calendar; therefore they were 13 days behind all the other parts of Europe.

They started using the Gregorian calendar in This measure, referred to as Decree Time , was intended to save energy. During the s, a growing number of regions abolished Decree Time, and in , it was revoked across the entire country.

However, it was soon reinstated in many areas. Decree Time also remains in force in some of the Soviet Union's former republics. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia reshuffled its time zone boundaries a number of times. In , both Decree Time and seasonal clock changes were officially abolished across the nation.

Instead, Russia observed permanent DST —until , when the country returned to year-round standard time. In that case, residents of the Pacific coast city would see the sunset before 3 p. Supporters say cutting time zones could help bring the distant east closer and build loyalty toward the central government in Moscow. But experience in other countries warns of the opposite effect — a potentially divisive feeling of separation. Before China's communist revolution, the country had five time zones.

Under Mao Zedong's government — with its obsession with strong central leadership and unified national political movements — they were all abolished in favor of using the time in Beijing as the standard.

The major impact in China has been to require government offices in far western cities such as Kashgar, which lies at the same longitude as New Delhi, to open at the break of dawn. Out-of-synch lifestyles Arkady Tishkov, geographer at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Ekho Moskvy radio that playing with clocks is unacceptable if the economic benefit is outweighed by health problems associated with out-of-synch lifestyles.

Lazarev, also a city lawmaker in Vladivostok suggested implementing a time switch gradually by jumping forward to daylight saving time in some areas every year, then not setting the clocks back in the fall.

Medvedev stressed the need to assess the advantages and the "obvious discomforts" before eliminating some of the time zones. Setting new time zones — and thus changing people's daily patterns across Russia — wouldn't be Moscow's first attempt to defy Mother Nature in the motherland.