Russia has too many time zones: Medvedev
Agence France-Presse | 11/12/2009 11:17 PM
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MOSCOW - From Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, Russia covers 11 time zones -- and President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that is too many.
"We need to look at the possibility of cutting the number of time zones. Of course we need to consider the consequences of such a decision," Medvedev said in a state of the nation speech.
Medvedev also questioned whether Russia should continue to change the clocks twice a year for daylight saving.
"Here we need to compare all the advantages from economising and the obvious disadvantages," Medvedev said. "I hope specialists will give us objective answers to these questions."
Russia was divided into 11 time zones in 1919. The Soviet Union introduced daylight saving in 1981 and it has continued ever since.
Medvedev's comments come one month after a regional deputy in the Far Eastern Primorye region -- which is seven hours ahead of Moscow -- called for the time difference with Moscow to be cut to four hours to ease business links.
The Kremlin's top economic adviser, Arkady Dvorkovich, said after the speech that cutting the number of time zones was possible and that Russia might even hold referendums on the issue in regions that would be affected.
"We're not talking about sudden changes for now," Dvorkovich said, but added that some regions could easily switch to a neighbouring time zone.
"In certain regions a shift by one hour could happen at any moment," he said.
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