Russia to Adopt International Time Zone System

Soon Russia may adopt the international zone time system. The document is now being discussed on the regional level.

Photo: Russia to Adopt International Time Zone System

According to the proposal of the State Duma presidential legislation, on the last Sunday of March, the clocks may be set back one hour, and not forward, as it used to be in the last 29 years.

Scientists and doctors have been arguing about pros and cons of the time change for years. The scientists claim that it brings about savings and more comfortable existence during daylight hours. Doctors disagree, stating that the number of heart attacks increases within several weeks after the clocks are set back or forward. They also observe aggravation of chronic diseases, decrease in stamina, and insomnia. Children and older people suffer the most, reports Gazeta.ru.

The proposed federal law suggests abandoning annual re-setting of the clock. If this piece of legislation is passed in the next couple of months, the usual re-setting of the clock in Russia will not happen on the last Sunday of March.

Additionally, we may have to set the clocks one hour back, but it will be a one-time action. The same piece of legislation would abandon daylight savings time in the Russian Federation.

The daylight savings time enacted in the USSR on June 16, 1930, is one hour ahead of the world zone time. This daylight savings time existed until April 1, 1981, when summer daylight savings time was introduced and Russia transferred to the European system of summer and winter daylight savings. Summer daylight savings time is two hours different form the zone time, while in the majority of the countries they coincide. As a result, getting up at 7am, Russians were actually getting up at 5am according to the zone time.

The explanatory note to the legislation states that daylight savings time is an obvious anachronism. Introduction of daylight savings time was necessary because of power savings. However, current calculations show that the savings only account for 0.5% of all produced p. Therefore, computation of time in Russia will comply with the international zone system.

According to the authors of the idea, the experiment with introduction of distortion into natural biorhythms of the population of the entire country has failed. They argue that its abandonment will improve the population’s health, will save lives of tens of thousands of people and will improve the demographic situation in the country. At the same time, all claims about health benefits will be pointless if another President’s idea will be considered. The idea is to decrease the number of time zones in Russia that now has 11 of them.

Novy Region