Time in Russia

Russia has 11 different time zones, which means the sun rises and sets at different times across the country. These time zones range from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00. Since October 26, 2014, Russia has not used daylight saving time, where clocks are moved forward or back to match the amount of daylight. Before that, from March 27, 2011, to October 26, 2014, Russia used permanent daylight saving time. Today, about 63% of people in Russia live in a time zone called MSK, which is UTC+03:00.

List of zones

Since 27 December 2020, Russia has several time zones.

Daylight saving time

See also: Summer time in Europe and Summer time in Europe § Russia

Before 2011, Russia changed its clocks back and forth each year, just like Europe did. On 27 March 2011, the clocks moved forward as usual, but they didn’t move back on 30 October 2011. This made Moscow Time stay at UTC+04:00 forever. Then, on 26 October 2014, the clocks in most of the country moved back one hour, but they didn’t bring back the yearly clock changes. Moscow Time went back to staying at UTC+03:00 forever.

History

Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire, most of the nation used the sun's position to tell time. Until 1867, Alaska, which belonged to Russia, used a different calendar and local times up to GMT+15:10. The westernmost area of Russia was Congress Poland, with local times down to GMT+01:10.

During the late 1800s, Moscow Mean Time was introduced, matching Moscow's longitude. Other parts of Russia kept using the sun's position for several years.

Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918, skipping 13 days from the calendar.

Soviet Union

After the Soviet Union was created, Moscow Time became UTC+02:00 and other time zones were introduced across Russia and the Soviet Union. Between 1917 and 1922, time keeping was less organized.

On 21 June 1930, the Soviet Union moved all clocks forward by one hour, making the nation run on daylight saving time all year.

Decree time

In 1930, clocks across the country were moved forward by 1 hour from 21 June to 30 September to save electricity. This practice continued because of electricity shortages in winter evenings. Plans to return to standard time were never carried out.

Changes after 1937

After 1937, changes were made to eliminate the use of different times in small areas. Daylight saving time was adjusted in some regions, and some areas stopped using an extra hour.

From 1 December 1956, the official boundaries of time zones were planned to change, but this happened on 1 March 1957. Some regions changed their clocks, and time now differed from Moscow by two hours in some places.

After the 1957 reform, some regions in the European part of the RSFSR switched to Moscow time, stopping the extra “decree hour”.

By 1962, some regions were two hours ahead of standard time. By 1973, the “decree hour” was stopped in many regions.

Introduction of daylight saving time

From 1 April 1981, the country started regularly switching clocks forward for summer. This restored the “decree hour” in some regions. Some regions did not switch back in the fall of 1981, causing confusion. They switched back in the spring of 1982 and returned to their usual winter time in the fall.

After introducing seasonal clock changes, local summer time in many regions was two or three hours ahead of the standard time set in 1924.

Reforms of the time before the collapse of the USSR

In 1988 and 1989, some regions switched to neighboring time zones, stopping daylight saving time. In 1990, Georgia and Moldova did the same, and some union republics stopped seasonal clock changes.

From 31 March 1991, decree time was officially stopped across most of the USSR. The abolition of decree time happened during the collapse of the USSR.

On 23 October 1991, the RSFSR government decided to restore daylight saving time, saying the previous change reduced daylight hours and increased electricity use.

Russian Federation

Russia and most Soviet republics stopped the decree time on 31 March 1991, but Russia reversed this the next year.

On 20 October 1991, Samara Oblast changed its time zone from MSK to MSK+1.

On 19 January 1992, decree time was reintroduced.

On 23 May 1993, Novosibirsk Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3.

On 28 May 1995, Altai Krai and Altai Republic changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3.

On 30 March 1997, Sakhalin Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+8 to MSK+7.

In May 2002, Tomsk Oblast changed its time zone from MSK+4 to MSK+3.

The following time zone changes occurred on 28 March 2010, which eliminated two of the eleven time zones.

Decree No. 725 of 31 August 2011 changed the UTC offset for Moscow Time and other time zones. Moscow Time Zone began using UTC+04:00 all year around. The ideas of decree time and daylight saving time were stopped, but this decree made permanent daylight saving time in some regions.

The decree also changed the offset of some parts of the Sakha Republic from Moscow.

As a result of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, local authorities in the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol decided that clocks should jump ahead two hours on 29 March 2014 to switch from Eastern European Time (UTC+02:00) to Moscow Time (UTC+04:00).

In July 2014, further changes were passed, which took effect on 26 October 2014. Almost all of Russia moved back one hour, so Moscow Time became UTC+03:00 again. Some areas changed their offset from Moscow.

The following time zone changes occurred on 27 March 2016:

On 24 April 2016, Magadan Oblast moved forward one hour.

On 29 May 2016, Tomsk Oblast moved forward one hour.

On 24 July 2016, Novosibirsk Oblast moved forward one hour.

On 4 December 2016, Saratov Oblast moved forward one hour.

On 28 October 2018, Volgograd Oblast moved forward one hour, but this change was reversed on 27 December 2020.

After the Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in September 2022, the parts of these oblasts under Russian control stayed on Moscow Time (UTC+03:00). In April 2023, Russian law was changed to include these oblasts in Moscow Time.

Railway time

Until 2018, train schedules on Russian Railways, except for Sakhalin railways, used the same time as Moscow. Starting in 2018, train schedules began to use the local time of each area. Airports and flights also follow the local time of their location.

Tz Database

For Russia, the tz database lists several zones in the file zone.tab.

List of zones

The list below shows the 27 zones for Russia from the file zone.tab of the database. The database tries to identify regions that followed the same time rules since 1970.

Two federal subjects are split into more than one tz zone. The Sakha Republic is divided into three parts: west, central, and east. Sakhalin Oblast is divided into two: Sakhalin Island with Kurilsky and Yuzhno-Kurilsky districts in the Kuril Islands, and Severo-Kurilsky District in the Kuril Islands.

On the last Sunday in October 2011, daylight-saving time ended in tzdata, but all zones moved forward one hour. In simple terms, the clocks did not change, but the names of the time zones went back to their standard time names permanently, and there would be no more daylight-saving time. ^{[citation needed]}

If available, the change column shows when a new zone was created in the tz database.

"Initial zone" means that in 1970, there was already a time difference from other zones.

Deleted zones

Asia/Ulan Ude was a time zone identifier from the zone file of the tz database. The reference point was Ulan-Ude. It was added in tz version 2011e but was removed in edition 2011i. The area stayed with Asia/Irkutsk. The data in zone.tab was:

RU +5150+10736 Asia/Ulan_Ude Moscow+05 – Buryatia

The covered area was Republic of Buryatia.