The exact time in the city Moscow, Russian Federation

Moscow time, according to the Federal Law «On the Calculation of Time» shows the time of the entire time zone in which the capital of Russia is located. At the same time, it is a reference point for the regions (you probably have heard the expressions «18:00 Moscow time» or «7:00 Moscow time»). Let’s tell a little about the time of the capital.

About meridian zero

The time zone in Moscow is UTC+3 (GMT+3). UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time, is a common standard by which people determine minutes and hours and was introduced to replace the outdated Greenwich Mean Time. Historically, this area of London was the zero meridians, which was used by sailors to determine time. Incidentally, Russian aircraft and helicopters started using UTC instead of Moscow time in 1993.

Moscow time was used on railroads since 1919, and this factor influenced the introduction of time zone throughout the USSR. Until August 2018, Russian Railways tickets indicated departures by Moscow time; now, for long-distance trains, only the local time at both points is indicated.

Facts about the geography of the capital:

• Moscow as a geographical object has coordinates 55.75°,37.62°.
• More than 12 million people live in the city, and its area is 2,561 km².
• The shortest day of the year in Moscow is 6 hours 59 minutes, and the longest is 17 hours and 33 minutes.
• Moscow time from UTC shifted from 2 to 5 in different years and seasons. Now the difference is +3.

Regions in the 3rd time zone began switching to Moscow time, especially after 1957, thereby moving back one hour. At some point, the Komi and Nenets National Districts joined the Moscow time zone.

Interesting: the chimes, to the chime of which Russians celebrate the New Year are located on the Kremlin (Spasskaya, also Frolovskaya) tower in Moscow, built in the late XV century. In 1626 after the fire they built a similar clock in the same place. Time is synchronized to the nearest second these days by connecting the clock to the control clock through a special cable.

About the time zones of Russia

Russia had a time zone system since 1919. Moscow was put in the 2nd time zone, like all other cities to the east of the 37.5° meridian. The transition was 4 hours. In autumn, the clocks were reset by one hour only, so Moscow’s difference with World Coordinate Time remained +3.

The most interesting is the time difference between different cities in the country and Moscow. In some cases, it reaches 9 hours, such as in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

In the same time zone as Moscow are located St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Orel, Belgorod, Petrozavodsk, Yaroslavl, Penza, Vladimir, Pskov, Vologda, Rostov-on-Don, Ryazan, Volgograd, Saratov, Grozny, Ivanovo, Smolensk, Tver, Lipetsk, Stavropol, Syktyvkar, Sochi, Tambov, Kursk, Cherkessk, Murmansk, Nalchik, Naryan-Mar, Vologda and other cities in this time zone.

The difference with other cities in Russia is as follows:

• -1 — Kaliningrad;
• +1 — Astrakhan, Voronezh, Samara, Izhevsk, Ulyanovsk;
• +2 — Orenburg, Perm, Salekhard, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Khanty-Mansiysk, Kurgan;
• +3 — Omsk, Anzhero-Sudzhensk;
• +4 — Abakan, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Achinsk, Kyzyl, Gorno-Altaisk, Berdsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Belovo, Krasnoyarsk;
• +5 — Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude Angarsk;
• +6 — Blagoveshchensk, Chita, Yakutsk, Belogorsk;
• +7 — Birobidzhan, Khabarovsk, Artyom, Vladivostok, Amursk;
• +8 — Magadan, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Anadyr;
• +9 — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky;

In 1981, about 30 regions «parted» with Moscow time, but in 1982 changed time zone again. By 2010 several more regions moved to the same administrative time zone as Moscow: Samara, Volgograd, Saratov, Astrakhan, Izhevsk, Kirov, and Ulyanovsk. Some, on the contrary, moved from it: to the Baltics, Kaliningrad region, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.

The difference between Moscow and the countries of the world:

• Egypt — minus 1 hour.
• The USA — minus 7 in New York, minus 10 in Los Angeles.
• Ukraine — the same in summer and minus 1 hour in winter.
• Turkey — the same in summer and minus 1 hour in winter.
• London — minus 2 hours in summer and minus 3 hours in winter.
• Germany — in summer minus 1 hour, in winter minus 2 hours.

Important: in writing, the abbreviation MSC is often used in lowercase letters. The MSC in capital letters is found in the Federal Law «On the Calculation of Time». We write «MSK» if we call the time zones of Russia, or the time of the region relative to Moscow. We use MSK as a supplement to the data if we indicate an event relative to Moscow.

About daylight saving time and wintertime

In many countries, this transition is maintained, but in Russia in 2011, the transfer of hours in the fall was abolished, since then the country lives by daylight saving time. Since 2014, according to the law «On the Calculation of Time», Moscow time became UTC+3. At the same time, Udmurtia and the Samara region retained UTC+4. Before 2018, Astrakhan, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, and Volgograd moved one hour ahead of Moscow time. The latter still returned to the Moscow time zone in 2020.

About the negative consequences of the transfer of hours say, doctors, at the same time economists do not see money savings from the transition and also point to the inexpediency of returning to summer and wintertime.

Expert comment:

«Changing the hands is especially harmful to the body in October when people are forced to wake up an hour earlier than the time they are used to. During this period, the number of heart attacks, hypertensive crises, and other problems with the cardiovascular system increases. At the same time, people are about 12% more likely to call an ambulance,» said Alexei Inyushkin, head of the Department of Human and Animal Physiology at Samara University.

Conclusion

The right time is now important not only biologically, but also economically. It plays a decisive role in travel so that the passenger will not be late for the train or the plane. In addition, in the era of numbers, even a millisecond can be worth a fortune when trading on the stock exchange or deciding exactly who will book a hotel or buy an item in an online store.