Daylight saving time in 2017

Everyone knows such concepts as winter and summer times. The beginning of the appearance of different times in our lives was marked by the idea of \u200b\u200bBenjamin Franklin, who put forward this proposal. In his opinion, changing the time from winter to summer and back, depending on the season, has a number of advantages:

• This will allow for a more reasonable waste of energy resources, which is very important at all times;
• Many resources will be saved;
• Will have a good effect on the human condition;
• Convenient and practical;

Then, more than a century ago, the attitude to this idea was ambiguous: for some it caused genuine bewilderment, for others - support.

But still, you need to figure out what the translation of the arrows is for and will we do it in 2017?

Back to the past: history of time transfers

Back to the past: history of time transfers

In the Russian Federation, the change of time depending on the season of the year was first made in 1917. But such an innovation did not become habitual right away, since many residents of the country wondered why it was necessary, and almost refused to follow the innovation, which gave rise to conflicts and problems.

Many years passed before the transition of time was officially fixed - it happened in 1981, when the government of the USSR issued a corresponding decree. But even then, the citizens of Russia for a long time could not get used to the need to change the time on the clock every year.

Innovations have not spared us either: in 2011, the head of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree abolishing the transition to "summer" and "winter" times. But the innovation did not last long, and after 3 years, in 2014, the Russians again moved their watches, first one hour forward, and then one hour back. And in the same year, the government again decided to change everything and decided to cancel the transition to "summer" time: let everyone live according to the "winter". Their choice was justified by the fact that "winter" hours are most favorable for humans.

Will there be something “new” in 2017?

Will there be something “new” in 2017?

Many representatives of the authorities believe that the newly introduced transition to a new era will not bring anything good, but will only confuse people and force them to reshape their regime. From these statements, we can conclude that in 2017 Russia is not expected to change over time, and the country will calmly live by the "winter" hours.

However, the constant talk about the resumption of the clock setting again does not leave either society or the government anyway. Some of its representatives still insist that the transition is necessary, and changing the time by just an hour will not have any effect on either the regime or the well-being of citizens. The Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Veronika Skvortsova herself joins this opinion.

Do not lose sight of the fact that some regions of the country are already awaiting innovations in time. For example, a project related to Kaliningrad has been prepared and sent for consideration. In the area, it is proposed to resume the transfer of time.

And what do doctors say about clock adjustments?

And what do doctors say about clock adjustments?

Representatives of this profession express a unanimous opinion on this score: cheating on time is harmful to the body. According to the research carried out, at least one and a half or even two months is required for a person to adapt to the change of hours. By changing the time, disturbances in the functioning of the body can be provoked, such as:

1. Insomnia or decreased sleep, anxiety
2. Fatigue, decreased performance
3. Short-term memory loss
4. Disturbances in the work of the cardiovascular system

According to some reports, during the transition in time there is an increase in the number of road accidents due to the fault and inattention of the driver. These data make one think: is the translation of the arrows really so necessary that you will have to sacrifice the health, and even the life of people?

What do people think?

When making such large-scale decisions that will affect the life of every person, you should not neglect the opinion of people. That is why scientists are trying to conduct sociological surveys in order to find out the attitude of people to the proposed innovations. Moving the clock hands to a new time was no exception. Sociologists have conducted a number of events and found out how ordinary people feel about the proposed idea.

A 2011 study showed that the proportion of those who are satisfied with the translation of watches is quite small. Only 8% of citizens answered that the time change had a beneficial effect on them. Slightly more than a third said they had not noticed any dramatic changes. Less than half (47.5%) said that their emotional and physical condition became much worse after moving the clock hands. They also complained about their health.

Moreover, scientists have determined that during the period of the country's transition to summer time and back, the number of people admitted to hospital with exacerbation of cardiovascular diseases increased by more than 10%.

Will there be Daylight Saving Time in 2017 in Russia?

There is no daylight saving time in Russia.

Since 2014, there has been no transfer to summer or winter time in Russia.

The changeover of time, carried out since 1981, existed for almost 30 years and the "winter" time was first canceled, when in 2011, having switched to summer time in spring, the usual "winter" time was not returned in the fall and we constantly lived in the "summer" time for three years ...

Only in the fall of 2014, our rulers finally corrected this "incident" and Russia switched to its standard time zones.

In our country, they no longer experiment with the translation of time, since there is nothing good from this. The previously advertised electricity saving turned out to be a common hoax, and the constant change of regime has a rather negative effect on the human body.

The transfer of clocks at the state level is due to the optimization of the use of daylight hours relative to the performance of a larger amount of work and the saving of electrical energy required for lighting. The definitions of "summer" and "winter" time are conditional and require explanation.

Daylight saving time is established by a nationwide transfer of time one hour ahead, which is carried out in the spring and remains until autumn. Winter time is set by resetting the time nationwide to local standard time by moving the clock hands one hour back from daylight saving time. It should be noted that the standard local time (winter), fixed at the state level, may slightly differ from the geographic solar time, due to the coordinates of the object. For example, when it is 12:00 in Moscow, 11:53 in Voronezh. However, these nuances are not taken into account in order to avoid confusion within the same time zone.

On the territory of Russia, the first translation of clocks was carried out in 1917. And on the eve of the anniversary of the significant date, a rumor appeared that there will be a new time shift in 2017 by an hour ahead. In this regard, it became necessary to clarify this issue and provide our readers with the most objective information.

Daylight saving time conversion: reasons for the appearance of information about the probability of this event

• As mentioned above, in 2017, on the first of August, the anniversary comes from the day of the first transfer of time to the USSR. In Russia, there is a high tendency towards symbolism at the state and private level, which is associated with numerous periods of rifts and coups that did not allow stabilizing an adequate perception of reality.
• Two-fold reform of the time conversion within one decade of the 21st century, which also leads to instability in relation to this issue in the minds of ordinary citizens. Change to constant summer time in 2011 and change to constant winter time in 2014. In some regions (Transbaikalia and Magadan) in 2014, the transfer was carried out two hours ago. The latter was necessary to return to standard local time in connection with the additional "maternity hour" introduced in 1930.
• In some regions, in 2014, they refused to transfer clocks to local standard time: Kamchatka, Chukotka, Kemerovo, Udmurtia, Samara.
• In 2016, bills were submitted in a number of regions to return to daylight saving time or to transfer clocks. Some of them were approved and accepted for execution.
• As a result, the transition to summer and winter time in 2017 became an excellent topic for Internet discussions, where a corresponding rumor was launched, which subsequently migrated into reality.

Objective information on time conversion in 2017

• At the federal level, there are no bills suggesting a time change in 2017.
• At the regional level, as of October 2016, there are no bills providing for a time change in 2017.
• At the official level, there were no statements about the possibility of creating bills at the federal level, suggesting the transfer of watches in 2017.

Predictions for the issue of clock conversion in 2017

• The majority of the population of the Russian Federation perceived the initiatives to reform the issue of time transfer negatively in 2011 and 2014. The third bill could provoke even more resentment, which is politically disadvantageous given the upcoming presidential elections in Russia.
• The Internet has become the primary source of information among the media, which indicates a high probability of a "duck", since the reliability of information from most Internet portals cannot be verified.
• Single draft laws at the regional level, initiated by local government or population, are possible. The practice of 2016 showed the relevance of such bills.

Thus, with a probability of 95%, there will be no clock transfer at the federal level, and at the regional level, isolated precedents are possible, but unlikely.

Chronology of time conversion in the USSR and the Russian Federation

06/01/1917 - the first clock was transferred in the USSR one hour ahead.

06/27/1917 - government decree on the transfer of hours.

08/31/1917 - it was supposed to move the clock to return to standard time.

12/27/1917 - the actual translation was made one hour back to return to standard time.

1924 - refusal to transfer hours.

1930 - daylight saving time, which remained until 1981: daylight saving time.

04/01/81 - transfer of time forward one hour in relation to daylight saving time.

1982-1991 - Waiver of Daylight Savings Time and the beginning of daylight saving time in relation to standard time.

2011 - the transition to daylight saving time with the refusal of the subsequent transfer.

2014 - the transition to standard time with the refusal of the subsequent transfer.

The concept of winter and summer time appeared in our everyday life more than a century ago. It arose from the advancement of Benjamin Franklin's idea of \u200b\u200bsaving energy resources by moving the hour hands back and forth. Now we are used to the fact that twice a year we have to get used to a new daily routine for some time, but even a hundred years ago such innovations faced serious resistance and misunderstanding from people. So, why exactly do you need to change the clock, and will the hands be changed in 2017?

Development of the idea of \u200b\u200btranslating watches

The pioneers of this event were the British, who first switched to summer and winter time in 1908. Ten years later, the Americans joined them, and nowadays residents of almost eight dozen countries of the world resort to translating the arrows. Russia first resorted to such a transition in the summer of 1917, however, due to constant changes in power, the order of the transfer of arrows could hardly be called regular.

The turbulent time did not facilitate the adoption of clear decisions, therefore, by the thirties, complete temporary chaos formed in the country. They returned to the solution of this issue already in the times of the USSR, when in 1930, according to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, the hands were moved one hour ahead and finally stopped this practice for many years. The country has remained to live ahead of the natural daily cycle by 1 hour. In the early eighties, the state again introduced the practice of summer and winter time.

Daylight saving time (1 hour ahead) will take place on 03/26/2017

This continued until November 2009, when the decree of President Dmitry Medvedev raised the question of the advisability of following world time trends. For a long time, parliamentarians could not decide in what time the country would live, but since 2014, Russia has decided to finally abandon the clock transfer. By the way, this is not only Russian practice. For example, in 2005, Georgia also decided to abandon summer and winter time, the arrows no longer translate Belarusians, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs and Tajiks.

As an argument, the position was expressed that changes in the mode of life, occurring twice a year, adversely affect the health and nerves of Russians, leading to sleep disturbances, disruption of the cardiac system and similar negative consequences.

Clock translation in 2017 in Russia

In 2017, Russia remains to live in the same regime, excluding the translation of clocks. Although it can still change - it was not for nothing that in 2016, among the members of the government, talk began to be heard that in a couple of years the order of the hour crossing could be resumed in the country. For example, according to Veronika Skvortsova, who holds the post of Minister of Health, this practice is absolutely not a risk factor for health.

Transfer to winter time (1 hour ago) will take place on October 29, 2017

To date, the deputies of the Kaliningrad Duma have already prepared a draft law that will be submitted for national consideration. This document contains provisions that the clock must be resumed for a very specific purpose: in order to more efficiently use the daylight hours.

Clock translation in 2017 in Ukraine

In Ukraine, the clock will be changed as usual and will take place on the last Sunday in March, 03/26/2017 (at this time, the residents of the country will move the hands 1 hour forward). On the last weekend in October, October 29, 2017, the transition to winter time will be carried out (on this day, the clock hands should be set back 1 hour).

Time changeover in 2017 in Russia: will it be or not

Metamorphoses with the translation of the clock hands in Russia in the past years have confused, perhaps, everyone, and no one knows what to expect from the government in this regard. Will there be a change in time in 2017 or not, whether it will happen in the whole country or will again affect only certain regions - we will find out in more detail.

History of clock conversion in the country

Not finding, apparently, more important things in the war-ravaged country, which had lost its centuries-old management system, the interim government in the summer of 1917 for the first time in the history of the state moved the clock hands one hour forward.

The Bolsheviks, having barely come to power and slightly crazed by this fact, nevertheless did not forget to issue a decree and return everything as it was, rewinding time an hour ago. Rapid industrialization in a state that was still extremely poor gave rise in 1930 to the idea of \u200b\u200bswitching clocks to daylight saving time - in order to save energy resources for lighting. Nothing changed until 1981, when for some reason the time was moved one hour ahead, which was abandoned a year later and everything was returned as it had been since 1930.

Finally, a very recent change. At first, it was decided that switching the hands to winter and summer time does not bring any special savings (finally), but the harm to health, especially for people whose health is weakened, is much greater, so it is worth giving up the practice of annual clock adjustments ... But for some reason, this quite sensible and convenient undertaking was implemented rather hastily and set summer time “forever”, not taking into account that it differs from astronomical time by a whole two hours, while winter time is only one hour, that is, better corresponds to both human biorhythms and the elementary beginning and end of daylight hours. As a result, already in 2014, the country again changed the clock, again “forever” and in order not to touch them, this time returning to constant winter time. Along with the widespread translation of hands, a reform of time zones was carried out, and some regions moved to the neighboring time zone, which is more consistent with the astronomical time in this area.

Will there be a clock change in 2017

With all this confusion ahead of 2017, rumors arose again that the country would have a watch shift in 2017. They even remembered the centenary of the events of 1917 and the love of the authorities to find their legitimacy in the past.

However, there are two simple things to understand. Firstly, although the current government in Russia likes to rely on the past, the Bolsheviks in 1917 were never spared in their speeches, calling them almost traitors to the country in that situation. The political regime relies more on the successors of the cause of Lenin and Trotsky. Secondly, to carry out a reform of the translation of watches in 2017 - to make the government a laughing stock. The country laughed at the time shifting in 2014, bringing it up again even to divert attention from more pressing issues is not a brilliant idea.

In general, summarizing all of the above and relying on official sources, we can say the following:

• There are no projects for the translation of watches in 2017, as well as later, at the all-Russian level.
• At the level of the subjects of the Federation, there are no official plans to transfer clocks within a particular region.
• Officially, there is not even some form of draft law on the idea of \u200b\u200breturning to the translation of arrows in 2017 or later.

In a word, the rumors remained rumors, behind which there is nothing at all.

For the third year already, Russia has not switched the clock hands to summer and winter time. But the debate on the return of this event never stops, and it is not a fact that the tradition will never return to the country. The time changeover 2017 sounded due to the fact that it will be exactly 100 years since the first time in our country such a non-standard phenomenon occurred, which, by the way, caused bewilderment and indignation of the inhabitants. This experiment was first conducted in the world in Great Britain in 1907, although the American Benjamin Franklin was the initiator at the end of the 19th century.

The British, having analyzed the result, quickly abandoned the idea over time, believing that this move did not bring significant positive changes. But the meticulous Germans calculated everything to the smallest detail, discovered the benefits in terms of saving coal and more complete use of daylight hours, and brought the idea to life in 1916. Following them, almost all of Europe began to transfer the arrows, Russia began this process in July 1917. In June 1930, the Council of People's Commissars canceled the current Decree of the Provisional Government and introduced a new decree concerning the transfer of time forward by 1 hour relative to standard time. Since then, the country began to live according to the so-called "daylight saving" time all year round, ahead of the natural cycle by 1 hour. The return in 1981 to daylight saving time shifted the natural cycle by 2 hours. And only since 1997 have introduced the concept of "summer" time (from the 1st Sunday in April) and "winter" (from the last Sunday in October). Daylight saving time 2017 has not yet been raised since its cancellation in 2014 by order of Dmitry Medvedev. And not only our country is rushing about cancellation-renewal, a similar story is happening in other European countries. At the moment, 82 countries are moving the arrows "back and forth", whether it is logical, whether this process deserves such close attention - questions that have not been answered unequivocally.

Changing the time to an hour in 2017: pros and cons

It would seem that the translation was canceled and calm down, but no - this question is constantly being asked, the most paradoxical thing is that each argument is supported by "irrefutable" evidence. But there is such a science as statistics, shouldn't we pay attention to the research results before deciding whether to change the clock to summer time 2017. Let's try to analyze the issue from different perspectives:

• economic feasibility;
• impact on human health;
• technical aspects.

Let's consider the issue from the point of view of energy saving. The expediency of moving the arrows still depends on the latitude of the location of the state, and our country is too large, the distance from the equator in its different parts is different, it may be worth approaching the solution of the issue for each specific region. In equatorial and tropical latitudes (less than 30 °), the length of the day and night are equal, that is, there is no point in entering daylight saving time. And approaching the poles significantly changes the picture - here the shift of daylight hours is explicable and reasonable.

Now about health and adaptation. The well-being of a person and an animal largely depends on the daily routine, the ideal option is for an adult to sleep at least 7-8 hours, for children from 10 hours, the biological rhythm adapts to the regime and is the basis for restoring working capacity. If there is a shift in time, an instant restructuring of the body will not happen, this will take at least 4-6 weeks, that is, the body receives stress. As a result, health deterioration and decreased performance, schoolchildren in the first lessons are like sleeping flies, the elderly suffer from pressure drops. According to doctors, during these periods, especially in spring, the number of people with hypertensive crises and heart attacks significantly increases. Animals also suffer, cows cannot understand why an hour earlier or later they come to them for milk, the cattle expresses its protest in the form of a decrease in milk yield. Some progressive farmers leave their usual time in a single village, and this is quite reasonable. That is, according to medical indicators, switching to daylight saving time in 2017 is more harmful than beneficial.

Now let's look at the question from a technical point of view. Serious problems on the railways are a very hot topic. The Americans have calculated that this procedure costs US $ 12-20 million for US railroad workers each year. Annual serious accidents on railways and highways are typical for these days.

No less difficulties are associated with the operation of operating systems. On the part of the user, no matter how problems arise - the automatic translation of equipment happens "by itself", but everyone understands that this is done thanks to the program that is embedded in the equipment. In some cases, the transfer of time is accompanied by a failure in other programs. Less accurate household appliances, video cameras, electronic clocks and the like have to be readjusted manually.

Time change in 2017: latest news

The Kaliningrad deputies, without waiting for instructions from above, decided to independently develop a project to resume the transfer of time, and are going to make proposals in the State Duma. The initiators are confident that the increase in daylight hours will significantly reduce the consumption of energy resources. For unexplained reasons, they do not take into account the conclusion of doctors who talk about a decrease in performance. As an argument, the results of opinion polls can also be cited, which showed that switching the clock to summer time in 2017, judging by previous years, worsens the well-being of almost 50% of citizens. Does the performance degradation offset the proverbial energy savings?

In some Russian regions - in Transbaikalia, Altai, in Astrakhan, Ulyanovsk regions and Sakhalin, they still returned to their previous practice, so the time shift in Russia 2017 will take place in some places. This important event was marked by the fact that people lined up in numbers, thus expressing their welcome to the decision.

In neighboring Ukraine, the time change exists and the issue of canceling it is not yet being considered, so Ukrainians will still move the hands of their clocks forward on March 26, 2017, and on October 29 - one hour back.

As time goes on, rulers change, and no one is given to know what innovations await Russians in the near and distant future, the issue of changing the time, in fact, is far from the most important and topical. And for those who are too worried about the problem of changing the clock to daylight saving time in Russia 2017, there is hope that someday this will happen. You can read other articles about changes in Russia on the website 2017god.org.

Exactly a year ago - at 2.00 Moscow time on October 26, 2014 - the residents of Russia turned their watches back one hour. This is how the transition of the country to winter time, according to which we still live, was realized. On October 27, 2014, the number of time zones in Russia decreased from eleven to nine - now 52 regions live in Moscow time.

The decision to cancel daylight saving time was made on the basis of expert assessments: for example, the specialists of Rospotrebnadzor argued that

the old system had a negative impact on the health of people, especially children. The cancellation of winter time, implemented in 2011, had a negative impact on animals, from which farmers suffered. The Ministry of Industry also said that the switch does not save electricity.

Last year, astronomer Oleg Ugolnikov, why setting the clock back one hour won't solve the listed problems: “The answer is that in winter you will still have to get up in the dark, and the won hour will fall at the beginning of working hours, when there is no particular sense in it ...

Sunlight recovery will only increase by two months. Moreover, all these effects could be removed by introducing the seasonal winter time, as is done in many countries of the world, ”said the astronomer.

“As for the bright evenings - they were after the end of the working day in February. At the end of April it is light until 21:00 In the case of the reform, it will be light only until 8 pm - we will lose the much needed bright evening hour. It will switch to an interval of five or six hours in the morning, where absolutely no one needs it, ”added Ugolnikov.

Nevertheless, the clock was changed, and we still live according to winter time.

It happened historically

"Disorder" over time in Russia began in 1917 - it was then that the Provisional Government, by a decree of June 27, introduced daylight saving time in the period from July 1 to August 31, 1917 and from March 1 to September 1 of the following year, 1918. However, the hands of the clock returned an hour ago only on December 27, 1917.

In subsequent years, the transition to daylight saving time was carried out without any order, and in 1921 this happened two whole times - on February 14 and March 20. After 1922, standard time was in effect in the country (the officially approved time of each time zone), without transitions to daylight saving or winter time.

On June 21, 1930, the clock was moved forward one hour, and on September 30, it was returned back - this mode became known as daylight saving time.

On April 1, 1981, the Council of Ministers of the USSR again ordered to move the clock forward already relative to the daylight saving time. Because of this, summer time in many regions was ahead of the standard time by two hours.

Until 2010, daylight saving time was switched every year, but the date of the clock was changed four times. From 1996 to 2010, we switched the arrows on the last Sunday of March and October.

In 2011, on the initiative of Dmitry Medvedev, it was decided to cancel the October transfer of the hands one hour back, but last year the lawmakers again decided to change the course of time and the country switched from summer to winter regime.

And how are they?

Currently, the transition to daylight saving time is carried out by most European countries (except for Russia, Belarus and Iceland), the United States (with the exception of some states), Canada, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine. In the Southern Hemisphere, summer time is used in some states of Australia and Brazil, New Zealand, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Namibia.

Countries with Daylight Saving Time are shown in blue, countries where Daylight Saving Time has been canceled; red - countries where daylight saving time has never been.

It is worth noting that at latitudes close to the equator, the transition to daylight saving time is impractical, since the dark and daytime lasts about the same, 12 hours each.

Some countries that have refused to change the clock hands are using a different method to save the bright part of the day - they shift the working hours of enterprises and educational institutions.

This means that in summer people start working earlier, in winter - later, and the shift can exceed one hour.

If you want to sleep, go to New Zealand

However, how research scientists show , the duration of sleep of residents of different countries does not depend on the presence or absence of the law on the transfer of hours The researchers used data collected by mobile apps that track human sleep patterns. In total, in this way, scientists got into the hands of data on more than 941 thousand inhabitants of different countries of the world.

It turned out that residents of South Korea and Saudi Arabia sleep least of all - the average duration of their night's sleep was 6 hours 2 minutes. They go to bed at the same time at 0.16 and 0.39, respectively. The best sleepers are New Zealanders, who go to bed at 23.29 and sleep 7 hours and 27 minutes.

At the same time, residents of Russia go to bed later than everyone else - at 1.05, simultaneously with the Greeks and residents of the United Arab Emirates, but they sleep on average 6 hours and 45 minutes.

The rhythm of life in some countries may also seem unusual for the inhabitants of Russia. So, in China, many people are already on their feet at five in the morning, and at six in the parks and on the streets you can meet large groups of Chinese practicing qigong or taijiquan - specific types of physical exercises similar to health gymnastics.

In Chinese schools, classes also start early - at 7.00 - 7.30. However, in Brazil, things are about the same - there schoolchildren sit down at their desks at 7.00.

In countries with hot climates - Spain, Italy, Greece - you can come across an afternoon rest, a siesta, when most of the public institutions are closed for several hours, including cafes, restaurants and even some museums.

The latter is especially typical for small Spanish towns - in some of them a siesta can last for about three hours.

In our country, there are no such vivid traditions associated with sleep and rest, so the Russians have one thing to do - to get used to the regime established by the law "On the calculation of time" and to hope that American scientists, who claim the dangers of switching to daylight saving time, are right: daylight saving time, people lose about half an hour of sleep per day.

In the section on the question Scientists! I ask you again! What time are we now living? Real or displaced. What is not clear.? given by the author Flush the best answer is On a 2-hour advance.
Noon - 14:00 now.
Omich
Enlightened
(47272)
Daylight saving time is 2 hours ahead of noon at 14:00.
Do you yourself understand what you are asking?

Answer from Ilya Sychev[guru]
By shifting ...

Answer from Alexey Grigoriev[newbie]
present. if I understood correctly, the shift will be in the fall

Answer from Sit[guru]
Now we live 2 hours ahead of astronomical time

Time, daylight saving
Officially set times in cities and countries. For example, in winter in Russia the official time is 1 hour ahead of the standard time, and in summer (during the introduction of summer time) - by 2 hours. Daylight saving time is introduced to make full use of daylight in the summer months of the year. For this, in many countries, according to a special government decree (decree), the hands of the clock running in standard time are moved 1 hour forward. This is done either only for the summer period, or for the entire time. The countries of Europe (with the exception of Iceland), the USA, Canada, more than 50 countries in total switch to summer time annually. Since June 16, 1930, on the territory of the USSR, the clock hands have been constantly shifted 1 hour forward against standard time - this is the time that is called maternity time. In addition, since 1981, daylight saving time began to be introduced on the territory of the USSR, ahead of the zone time by another 1 hour against the maternity time. Daylight saving time usually changes at 2:00 on the last Sunday in March, and winter time changes at 3:00 on the last Sunday in October. However, from 1982 to 1986, by the decision of the government of the USSR, maternity time was canceled in 30 regions and autonomous republics of Russia, in the Baltic republics. In 1990, by decision of local authorities, it was canceled in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the spring of 1991, the government of the USSR was forced to abolish the daylight saving time throughout the country. The cancellation was combined with the transition to summer time. Therefore, in March 1991, when switching to daylight saving time, the hands of the clock did not move, and we switched to universal summer time. In the fall, 1 hour was added and we switched to the universal winter (i.e., standard) time. However, this brought significant economic losses, and on October 23, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR made a decision to return to the old, "maternity" time on the territory of Russia. It was carried out on January 19, 1992: all clocks in Russia were moved forward 1 hour. This was not done only in the Astrakhan, Volgograd, Samara, Saratov, Kirov regions and the Udmurt Republic.

Having a good watch is not enough to always know the exact time. We also need a standard by which this watch will be checked. For many years, such a standard was the day - the period of the Earth's rotation around its axis - and the second - 1/86400 of a day. The period of the Earth's rotation is constant with an accuracy of one thousandth of a second, but with the development of science and technology, even this high accuracy turned out to be insufficient.

In the 50s, physicists proposed using the duration of a certain amount of electromagnetic oscillations emitted and absorbed by atoms during the transition from one energy state to another as a reference unit of time. This is how the reference atomic clock appeared, the stability of a second of which is now almost a million times higher than the stability of the Earth's rotation. The era of atomic time has begun.

The duration of the atomic second can be chosen arbitrarily, but of course, it must be close to the second given by the rotation of the Earth. After all, we live on Earth, our life largely depends on its rotation, and therefore astronomical and atomic time should not noticeably diverge. If such a discrepancy reaches a few fractions of a second, the atomic clock, from which the known precise time signals are transmitted to all, are shifted forward or backward one second in order to combine atomic time with astronomical. Such transfers are allowed only twice a year - on June 30 or December 31, and they are made all over the world.

Atomic time with coordination with astronomical time was called Universal Coordinate Time; we live by this time.

Until now, we have talked about systems for counting time within a day. Now let's get acquainted with the systems for counting the days themselves, which are called calendars.

The calendar year we live in consists of 365 days; the duration of every fourth year is one more day. This year is called a leap year.

What is a leap year for? It turns out that it is necessary to match the calendar year with the solar year, which is the time of one revolution of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The duration of a solar, or "tropical" year, as astronomers call it, is 365.2422 days, or 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds.

Thus, the solar year is about 6 hours longer than the calendar year, and over 4 years this difference is almost a whole day. If this is not taken into account, the beginning of the calendar year will slowly move through the seasons and eventually fall into summer from winter. To prevent this from happening, a leap year is introduced.

For the first time a calendar of 365 days with one leap year was adopted in ancient Rome in 46 BC under Julius Caesar. This calendar came to be called the Julian or Old Style.

For a long time, the Julian calendar was considered perfectly accurate, but in fact it is not entirely true. Even taking into account leap years, the Julian calendar year is 11 minutes 14 seconds shorter than the solar one. It is easy to imagine that in 128 years the difference between calendar and astronomical time counting will be a whole day.

Such a slight difference naturally could not play an important role for most people, but the clergy, who demanded punctual fulfillment of church holidays, were worried about the discrepancy between the calendar and nature.

One of the most important religious holidays is Easter, which should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first spring full moon. The full moon was considered the spring full moon, which occurs shortly after the vernal equinox, i.e. 21 March. But over the centuries, the vernal equinox began to gradually slide from March 21 due to the discrepancy between the calendar and the astronomical time count. The definition of the day of Easter has become very complex, confusing, sometimes just wrong. To avoid this, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, issued a special decree to reform the calendar.

According to this decree, after October 4, 1582, it was necessary to count not October 5, but 15. This eliminated the error of the Julian calendar that had accumulated over the previous 12 centuries.

So that this kind of error does not accumulate in the future, it was decided from years that end with two zeros, for example, 1600, 1700, 1800, to consider as leap only those in which the number of hundreds is divisible by 4 (1600, 2000, 2400). The rest of the secular years should be simple, while according to the Julian calendar they were considered leap years. With a new account, a calendar error in one day will accumulate only over 3300 years, which, of course, has no practical significance. The new calendar system came to be called the Gregorian calendar, or new style.

To be fair, I must say that our calendar is still not very convenient for life. So, if you need to determine what day of the week will be on such and such a date in the current year, you must definitely look at the calendar or make calculations; for other years this task becomes even more difficult. Months are divided into a different number of days (30, 31, 28/29), the length of all quarters is different.

Why do we use such an inconvenient calendar, can we not change it? Of course you can.

A special commission has been organized at the UN to reform our calendar. Several hundred proposals were sent to this commission on the construction of a new calendar. The most interesting of them are the following two sentences:

1. The calendar year consists of 13 months of 28 days each, so there are exactly 4 weeks in each month. Identical numbers of all months fall on the same day of the week, for example, the first day of any month will always be Monday, the second - Tuesday, etc.

Since such a year will last 364 days instead of the usual 365, after the last day of the year, a special day is introduced without a number and a name - it is proposed to consider it a New Year's day. In leap years, there will be two such days without a number.

Such a thirteen-month calendar has one significant drawback - the number of months is different from what we are used to. We need to come up with a name for the thirteenth month and build our whole life counting on an extra month.

Gloomy morning

It must be admitted that there was nothing convenient in translating arrows twice a year. We did this (and residents of 75 countries continue to do this) in order not to lose the evening light hours in the summer. Last October, Belarus, following Russia, for the first time in almost 30 years, did not turn the clock back an hour. So we stayed for the winter in summer time. And it, as geographers explain, is ahead of the astronomical one, which corresponds to natural time zones, by as much as two hours.

The most unpleasant thing is that the innovation literally darkened the already dark and cold winter days. People lost not only an hour of sleep, but more or less a bright morning. Even Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin admitted at a meeting with football fans that it is difficult for him to get up in the morning and that he had already discussed the problem with Dmitry Medvedev.

This is not some kind of fetish, - said Putin. - We can return to this. We will consult with experts and the public in the broadest sense of the word. If the public thinks that it was better before, then it will.

We also decided to consult with experts. And it turned out: among pundits, surprisingly, there is no consensus on which time we should live better - in summer or winter.

Version 1: We Live Wrong Now

It would be wiser to introduce year-round winter time, which is ahead of astronomical time by only one hour. This difference is almost invisible to the human body. But the year-round summer time has a detrimental effect on biorhythms and worsens the state of health. As, however, and the seasonal translation of hours, - says Semyon Rapoport, Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor of the Moscow Medical University. THEM. Sechenov, People adapt to the gap in time in different ways. At 15, a person will not even notice that the arrows have moved. And the elderly and sick people, in order to adapt to the new time, need not a day or two, but weeks. Often there is an exacerbation of diseases. Another argument against year-round summer time is that there is not enough light. This is dangerous because it threatens depression. Such a social problem has long been present in countries such as Sweden and Norway - they have very short daylight hours, and these countries are in the first place in suicide. Now we also live like them. This means that we will have the same problems.

Version 2: We Live Right Now

We must stay in the time in which we live now. It is correct, our body has already tuned in for this time, - says Elena Belskaya, associate professor of the 2nd department of internal diseases of the Belarusian Medical University, candidate of medical sciences. - Experience shows that with the transition to a new time, people experience a decrease in working capacity and an increase in pressure. Even small children suffer.

Many people say that now we do not have enough light. But this is not the case. We do not have enough sunlight, but it is not the time to blame, but the weather. By the way, if we endlessly live in the light, then we will also have a strong depression. The body will lack melatonin, the sleep hormone.

For a long time people do not obey the seasons and transitions to summer time and back - only the schedules of offices and institutions, which do not change throughout the year.

What to do?

We need to discuss what time to live in winter. There are two options: move the arrows back and forth in autumn and winter, or stay all year round at the same time. The full use of daylight is the same in both cases.