Official Russia

The Financial Times has cool article about the challenges of changing time zones, including some info on Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal, which seeks to improve business and logistics of the far East.

The economic advantages of convenient temporal location have long
been recognised. For more than a century London has exploited its
position as a time bridge; the City’s working day overlaps with other
financial centres in the Americas and Asia.

But change in Russia,
as proposed by Mr Medevdev, will not be easy. “This is a huge country,
and it would inevitably lead to a large displacement in the life
rhythms of people compared to the rhythms of nature,” says Andrei Panin
of the geographical faculty of Moscow State University. “For example,
people would have to go to work, wake up, when it is still night. That
leads to costs on lighting, on electricity. We need to have a large
number of time zones in Russia.” (…)

The implication for Russia is that one or two time zones could be
eliminated without serious consequences, according to Sergei Smirnov,
director of Moscow’s Institute for Social Policy and Social and
Economic Programs, but: “If we were to have fewer than eight it would
go against all the laws of geography and nature. It could lead to a
social catastrophe.”

Source: Robert Amsterdam