What is the time in Russia? The country with 11 time zones!

The whole world is divided into 24 time zones, and Russia alone covers eleven of them, making it the country with the most consecutive time zones in the world. The time in Russia ranges from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00 (Coordinated Universal Time, which is the standard time the world regulates its clocks by). The country was divided into eleven time zones in 1919, after the Bolshevik Revolution, with boundaries going along railroads and rivers, although these time zones have since been revised multiple times.

Changes to time zones over time

Over the years, there have been many suggestions and attempts to reduce the number of time zones across Russia. As recently as in 2009, Russia decided to reduce its number of time zones from 11 to 9, but this decision was then reversed in 2014. One of the main reasons behind this was economic efficiency, as in some areas people who are relatively near to each other are functioning on very different, incompatible schedules. It is thought that reducing the time zone disparity would help to build relations across the country, and strengthen loyalty towards the central government in Moscow. However, on the other hand, this would result in extremely early sunsets (as early as 3pm), on the eastern coast of the country. In contrast to Russia, the entirety of China is officially in one time zone, despite its size, which suggests that it would be possible for Russia to function with smaller time zone differences.

Daylight Saving Time in Russia…

Another point of contention is summer versus winter time in Russia. In 1917, Russia switched to Daylight Saving Time, or ‘summer’ time, which is one hour ahead of the local solar time. Four years later, in 1921, this concept was abandoned, then fifty years later in 1981, Russia returned to switching back and forth from summer time. In 2011, this decision was reversed once again, because lots of Russians complained that changing their clocks twice a year was too difficult. All regions maintained their ‘summer’ time, which meant that some regions time differed from their geographic time. This led to even more complaints, due to the extra long and dark Russian winter which resulted from this decision. So, in 2014, all clocks went back by one hour and remained at that time, so since then, the whole of Russia exists permanently in ‘winter’ time.

Here’s a list of all the time zones in Russia and cities where its observed, so you’ll know the time no matter where in Russia you find yourself!

Alice, currently studying at Liden & Denz