Russia Time Zones
Time within a particular territory must be uniform for so many purposes. Uniform standard time is essential for smooth running for all sorts of activities performed in a territory. For this reason time zones were made across the world. Technically, a time zone is a region that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. Time zones are generally country bound because it is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time. Most of the time zones in the world are offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours (UTC−12 to UTC+14), but a few are offset by 30 or 45 minutes (for example Newfoundland Standard Time is UTC−03:30, Nepal Standard Time is UTC+05:45, and Indian Standard Time is UTC+05:30). Some higher latitude countries use daylight saving time for part of the year, typically by changing clocks by an hour. After brief explanation of how time zone works in the world, you might be curious to know what we are going to get in this article. Well, we will talk about time zones in one of the biggest country on the planet, Russia. Yes, you would be surprised to know that Russia has not one, two or three but 11 time zones. So let us see time zones in Russia.
Before we see time zones in Russia let us understand how UTC works? UTC or Coordinated Universal Time is basis of all civil time in the world today. But it is important to know that UTC itself is a standard and not a time zone. This 24-hour time standard is kept using highly precise atomic clocks combined with the Earth's rotation. Earlier it was called GMT but later in 1972 GMT was replaced by UTC and today GMT is a time zone followed by few countries in Africa and Western Europe.
Now we talk about time zones in Russia. As mentioned above Russia has 11 time zones, which currently observe times ranging from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00. And since 2011 Russia does not use daylight saving time. But why do you need to know about the time zones in Russia or anywhere for that matter? Because then only travelling is possible with proper scheduling. Else you can imagine if there was no such thing and each station in a territory made its own clock time then you are going to go through hell. This is what exactly happening till 19th century and then only concept of standard time came into existence. So a country where there are 11 time Zones it is more important to know them all. Only if you know the time zones in Russia then can you plan your travel well and can manage your time well when you are in this beautiful country called Russia. So here is the table representing all the time zones in Russia taken from Wikipedia.
| Time Zone Name | Time of day and abbreviation(s) | UTC offset | Area covered |
| Kaliningrad Time | 00:45, April 7, 2016 USZ1 (purge) | UTC+02 | Kaliningrad Oblast |
| Moscow Time | 01:45, April 7, 2016 MSK (purge) | UTC+03 | Most of European Russia, excluding federal subjects from UTC+02, UTC+04 and UTC+05 timezones |
| Samara Time | 02:45, April 7, 2016 SAMT (purge) | UTC+04 | Astrakhan Oblast, Samara Oblast, Udmurtia, Ulyanovsk Oblast |
| Yekaterinburg Time | 03:45, April 7, 2016 YEKT (purge) | UTC+05 | Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Kurgan Oblast, Orenburg Oblast, Perm Krai,Sverdlovsk Oblast (partly in Europe), Tyumen Oblast, and Yamalia |
| Omsk Time | 04:45, April 7, 2016 OMST (purge) | UTC+06 | Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast and Tomsk Oblast |
| Krasnoyarsk Time | 05:45, April 7, 2016 KRAT (purge) | UTC+07 | Altai Krai, Altai Republic, Kemerovo Oblast, Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tuva |
| Irkutsk Time | 06:45, April 7, 2016 IRKT (purge) | UTC+08 | Irkutsk Oblast and Buryatia |
| Yakutsk Time | 07:45, April 7, 2016 YAKT (purge) | UTC+09 | Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai and most of Sakha Republic |
| Vladivostok Time | 08:45, April 7, 2016 VLAT (purge) | UTC+10 | Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Magadan Oblast, Primorsky Krai and the Oymyakonsky, Ust-Yansky andVerkhoyansky districts of Sakha Republic |
| Srednekolymsk Time | 09:45, April 7, 2016 SRET (purge) | UTC+11 | Abyysky, Allaikhovsky, Momsky, Nizhnekolymsky, Srednekolymsky and Verkhnekolymsky districts of the Sakha Republic and Sakhalin Oblast |
| Kamchatka Time | 10:45, April 7, 2016 PETT (purge) | UTC+12 | Chukotka and Kamchatka Krai |
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