A PRESIDENTIAL proposal to slash Russia's 11 time zones to four could have Vladivostok residents tucking into their breakfast blini as Chinese neighbours polish off their lunch noodles.
President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday suggested reducing the number of time zones that slice up the world's largest country. That could shorten the seven-hour time difference between Moscow and Vladivostok to just a few hours.
"The examples of othe
r countries – the US, China – show that it is possible to cope with a smaller time difference," Medvedev said in his annual state-of-the-nation speech.
"We need to examine the possibility of reducing the number of time zones."
Russia's vastness is a source of national pride, but it also hinders economic development, Mr Medvedev said. "Here it is necessary to compare all the economic benefits (with the] obvious discomforts," he said.
Russia has 11 times zones and represents one-ninth of the world's land mass, stretching from Kaliningrad, where the time is two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, to Chukotka – across the Bering Strait from Alaska – with GMT +12.
President Medvedev did not say how extensive any cut would be, but Vladivostok Economics University rector Gennady Lazarev said it would most likely mean reducing Russia to just four time zones: One each for Kaliningrad, Moscow, the Ural Mountains region and the vast reaches of Siberia and the Far East.
Less than a quarter of Russia's 142 million people live east of the Urals – the boundary between Europe and Asia – in areas that constitute two-thirds of Russia's land.
"I can't fathom it," said political analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the proposal. "It is potentially life-changing for some people, for the sake of convenience in Moscow."
Its supporters claim cutting time zones could help bring the nation's distant east closer and stoke feelings of loyalty toward the central government in Moscow. But experience in other countries warns of the opposite effect – a potentially divisive feeling of separation.
China, before the 1949 communist revolution, recognised five time zones. But under Mao Zedong's government – with its obsession with strong central leadership and unified national political movements – they were all abolished in favour of Beijing standard time.
The major impact in China has been to require government offices in far western cities such as Kashgar, which lies at the same longitude as New Delhi, to open at the crack of dawn. Some residents have responded with defiance, setting their clocks three-and-a-half hours behind Beijing in violation of official policy.
Arkady Tishkov, a doctor of geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said playing with clocks is unacceptable if the economic benefit is outweighed by health problems associated with out-of-synch lifestyles.
Lazarev suggested implementing a time switch gradually by jumping forward to daylight saving time in some areas every year, then not setting the clocks back in the autumn.
"Our working day (in Vladivostok) ends when it starts in Moscow," he said. "It's both inconvenient for us and Moscow."
In his state of nation speech, Mr Medvedev also touched on several hot button issues in Russia, telling countrymen they need to move beyond the industrial legacy of the Soviet Union and build a modern hi-tech economy to survive.
He also ordered a sweeping modernisation of ageing Soviet-built military arsenals, and called for a foreign policy aimed at attracting investment and improving living standards.
"We mustn't puff out our chest," he said, speaking before parliament members and government officials in the Kremlin. "We are interested in the flow of capital, new technologies and modern ideas."
Mr Medvedev said Russia's foreign policy should be pragmatic rather than consisting of "chaotic actions driven by nostalgia and prejudice". "Its efficiency must be determined by the simple criterion of whether it helps raise living standards," he said.
