The exact time in the city Kyiv, Ukraine

Introduction

According to the IANA international characteristic for use with computer programs and operating systems for time indication, the Kyiv time refers to Europe/Kyiv.

There is a one-time zone on the territory of Ukraine, according to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The official time in Ukraine is Kyiv time.

Every year the clocks are changed:

Daylight saving time — on the last Sunday of March at 0300 hours one hour ahead

Wintertime: on the last Sunday of October at 04 hours, one hour backward.

This means that the time zone UTC+3, which was changed to UTC+2 at 04 hours on October 31, 2021, with a 1-hour shift backward, will return at 0300 hours on March 27, 2022.

The country’s main clocks

The question «What time is it?» is most accurately answered by the device called the Main Clock of Ukraine.

It’s the clock of the House of Trade Unions in Independence Square.

Eight-story trade union house was built by trust «Kievgorstroi-4» according to the project of architects A. Malinovsky and A. Komarovsky and commissioned in 1980.

In 1981, in the four-sided tower of the building, which is 57 meters high, there were mounted electric clocks with four scoreboards, each having the size of 4,3 x 7,2 m. Five thousand 40-watt bulbs allowed Kyiv citizens to see the exact time from a distance of more than one kilometer. Apart from the Kyiv time in hours and minutes, the scoreboards also showed the date and air temperature, which was astonishing in the absence of the Internet at that time.

Along with the beat, the electric clock sang the melody «How not to love you, my Kievan».

Because of the high consumption of electricity — up to 500 kW per hour — the clock worked in the economy mode for several years, from 4 pm to 8 pm.

In 2011, the outdated electric clock was replaced with an electronic clock made by EKTA. The electric clocks were replaced by enlarged LED screen panels, which functioned as multimedia displays.

Note EKTA — Eastern Europe’s largest developer and manufacturer of LED technology and equipment.

EKTA is headquartered in Kyiv, production of LED screens — in Zhytomyr.

On December 21, 2018, the clock on the House of Trade Unions resumed its work. Today the giant screens show not only the time in Kyiv online in hours, minutes, and seconds, but also other information, including meteorological. The clock also traditionally broadcasts the anthem of Kyiv.

The clock processor is synchronized online with the state time server, which provides accurate readings at the level of atomic clocks.

The clock on Maidan Nezalezhnosti is shown on TV news and other programs, and on the night of December 31 to January 1, tens of thousands of people use the Main Clock in Kyiv to count down the seconds left to the New Year.

Kyiv’s sacred clock

These are, no doubt, the chimes of the bell tower of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, the oldest cathedral in Ukraine.

It is located on the edge of the Starokyivska mountain, one kilometer from the House of Unions.

The first foundation stone was laid back in 1108.

During the construction, the dome of the cathedral church for the first time was covered with gold, which gave the temple the name of Zlatoverhy.

The Golden-Domed Cathedral, completed in 1113, means a lot to the believers as it bears the name of Archangel Michael, heavenly patron of Kyiv.

During its centuries-long history, the monastery has been repeatedly attacked, robbed, and destroyed.

In the early XIX century, chimes without hands, which sounded time and played melodies on bells, were installed in the monastery’s bell tower. Chimes didn’t serve long, in 1888 only remains of mechanisms and apertures in the walls of the bell tower reminded about them.

In 1922, the Bolsheviks closed the monastery, and in 1934-1937 they demolished the bell tower and refectory buildings and blew up the cathedral.

One of the initiators of the restoration of the Orthodox monastery was writer Oles Gonchar.

On December 9, 1995, the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma issued a decree which declared the restoration of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery a national priority.

The bell tower was the first to be reconstructed, recreating it in its original appearance. The consecration of the cathedral was held in 1998, on the Day of Kyiv.

Nowadays St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery is the functioning Orthodox monastery in honor of Archangel Michael in Kyiv, and the cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The chime clock that adorns the monastery’s bell tower is a unique work of art and technology. They include a keyboard instrument carillon, on which specially trained musicians play complicated melodies on the bells. There are fifty-one bells, from the «bass» one, which weighs eight tons, to the smallest one, which weighs four kilograms.

Every hour the historic center of Kyiv is roused by the melodious sounds of the bells.

Most of the compositions have a special meaning for the people of Kyiv and all Ukrainians:

• At noon and midnight, the anthem of Ukraine is played.
• At three o’clock in the afternoon is performed «Many a Summer,» a solemn wish for long life and prosperity.
• At three o’clock in the morning the old lullaby «Oy walk sleepy bells» is heard.
• At six o’clock in the morning, the bells announce the Prayer for Ukraine.

The «repertoire» of the bells, approved by the City Council and the Patriarch, includes folk songs and melodies of Ukrainian composers.

Conclusions

There are a lot of city clocks in the city of Kyiv. Kilometers of distance and hundreds of years separate the House of Trade Unions from the St. Michael’s Bell Tower, but the clocks installed on them show the same thing — the real-time in Kyiv.

The time indication system of the Main, Southern, and Suburban stations deserves a separate story. There are nearly two hundred points with dials 30, 40, 100, and 225 cm in diameter in the premises and lobbies, and 300 and 340 cm on the fronts indicate the exact Kyiv time. The operation of the system is controlled online with a deviation from world time by no more than 1 μs.