MOSCOW: Russia today is set to turn back its clocks to winter time permanently in a move backed by President Vladimir Putin, reversing a three-year experiment with non-stop summer time that proved highly unpopular.
Russia will also tinker with its time zones in order to revert to the full 11 zones from Kamchatka in the Pacific to Kaliningrad on the borders of the European Union — reduced to nine by previous president Dmitry Medvedev.
In one of his highest-profile reforms, Medvedev had backed Russia’s move to permanent Summer Time (Greenwich Mean Time plus four hours) in 2011 on the basis that changing clocks upset people’s biorhythms and made for “unhappy cows”.
But the change provoked a rumble of protest, wtih many Russians unhappy at getting up an hour earlier on pitch-dark winter mornings.
In July, Putin — known for rarely making public appearances in the morning — signed a law bringing back winter time (GMT plus three hours). He ruled that the clocks henceforth would never change to summer time.
The seemingly random reforms have riled Russians.
Moskovsky Komsomolets daily ran a cartoon of man hanging himself on the hands of a clock, saying: “I’m so sick of you changing all the time.”
But health officials reassured citizens that the move back to winter time was harmless.
Russia’s full 11 time zones will also be restored after Medvedev had cut down the number of time zones to nine. AFP
