Moscow Time

For the newspaper, see The Moscow Times.

Time in Russia

	KALT	Kaliningrad Time	UTC 2	(MSK−1)
	MSK	Moscow Time	UTC 3	(MSK±0)
	SAMT	Samara Time	UTC 4	(MSK 1)
	YEKT	Yekaterinburg Time	UTC 5	(MSK 2)
	OMST	Omsk Time	UTC 6	(MSK 3)
	KRAT	Krasnoyarsk Time	UTC 7	(MSK 4)
	IRKT	Irkutsk Time	UTC 8	(MSK 5)
	YAKT	Yakutsk Time	UTC 9	(MSK 6)
	VLAT	Vladivostok Time	UTC 10	(MSK 7)
	MAGT	Magadan Time	UTC 11	(MSK 8)
	PETT	Kamchatka Time	UTC 12	(MSK 9)

Time in Europe:

Light Blue	Western European Time / Greenwich Mean Time (UTC)
Blue	Western European Time / Greenwich Mean Time (UTC)
	Western European Summer Time / British Summer Time / Irish Standard Time (UTC 1)
Red	Central European Time (UTC 1)
	Central European Summer Time (UTC 2)
Yellow	Eastern European Time / Kaliningrad Time (UTC 2)
Ochre	Eastern European Time (UTC 2)
	Eastern European Summer Time (UTC 3)
Green	Moscow Time / Turkey Time (UTC 3)
Turquoise	Armenia Time / Azerbaijan Time / Georgia Time / Samara Time (UTC 4)

▉▉▉▉ Pale colours: Standard time observed all year
▉▉▉ Dark colours: Summer time observed

Moscow Time (MSK, Russian: моско́вское вре́мя, romanized: moskovskoye vremya) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia. It has been set to UTC 03:00 without DST since 26 October 2014; before that date it had been set to UTC 04:00 year-round on 27 March 2011.

Moscow Time is used to schedule trains, ships, etc. throughout Russia, but airplane travel is scheduled using local time. Times in Russia are often announced throughout the country on radio stations as Moscow Time, which is also registered in telegrams, etc. Descriptions of time zones in Russia are often based on Moscow Time rather than UTC. For example, Yakutsk (UTC 09:00) is said to be MSK 6 in Russia.

History

Until the October Revolution, the official time in Moscow corresponded to GMT 02:30:17 (according to the longitude of the Astronomical Observatory of Moscow State University). In 1919 the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR introduced the system of time zones in the country, and Moscow was assigned to the second administrative time zone, which was equal to GMT 02:00. Other zones east of the 37.5° meridian to Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula, Lipetsk, Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don were also included in the second belt.

In accordance with the 16 June 1930 Decree of the Council of People's Commissars, the Decree Time was introduced by adding one hour to the time in each time zone of the USSR, so that Moscow Time became three hours ahead of Universal Time.

Until 2011, during the winter, between the last Sunday of October and the last Sunday of March, Moscow Standard Time (MSK, МСК) was three hours ahead of UTC, or UTC 03:00. In the summer, Moscow Time shifted forward an additional hour ahead of Moscow Standard Time to become Moscow Summer Time (MSD), making it UTC 04:00.

In 2011, the Russian government proclaimed that daylight saving time would in future be observed all year round, thus effectively displacing standard time—an action which the government claimed emerged from health concerns attributed to the annual shift back-and-forth between standard time and daylight saving time. On 27 March 2011, Muscovites set their clocks forward for a final time, effectively observing MSD, or UTC 04:00, permanently.

On 29 March 2014, after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol—two federal subjects established by Russia on the Crimean Peninsula—switched their time to MSK on 30 March 2014 (from UTC 02:00 with DST to UTC 04:00 with permanent DST) and then when permanent DST in Russia was removed on 26 October 2014 the time became UTC 03:00 without DST all year.

On 1 July 2014, the State Duma passed a bill partially repealing the 2011 change, putting Moscow Time on permanent UTC 03:00 and thus back to standard time.

Usage

Most of the European part of Russia (west of the Ural Mountains) uses Moscow Time. In Kaliningrad Oblast, Kaliningrad time (UTC 02:00) is used. Samara Oblast and Udmurtia use Samara time (UTC 04:00) and Perm Krai, Bashkortostan and Orenburg Oblast use Yekaterinburg time (UTC 05:00). Since 2014, Moscow Time has been observed in Crimea after it was annexed and in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, including after their declared annexation in 2022.

Past usage

Prior to 26 October 2014, Moscow Time was UTC 03:00. Daylight saving time was used in the summer, advancing it to UTC 04:00.

UTC 03:00 was also formerly used in European parts of what was then the USSR:

• Estonia, in 1940–1941 and 1944-1989
• Latvia, in 1940–1941 and 1944-1989
• Lithuania, in 1940–1941 and 1944-1989
• Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia), in 1946–1989
• Moldova, in 1944-1990
• Ukraine, in 1930–1941 and 1943-1990
• Samara Oblast (Russia), in 1989–1991 and again from 2010–2011.
• Belarus, in 1930–1941, 1944-1991 and again from 2014–present.
• Crimea, in 1930–1941, 1944-1990, 1994-1997 and again from 2014–present.

Moscow Summer Time (UTC 04:00), was first applied in 1981 and was used:

• until 1989 in Estonia, Kaliningrad Oblast, Latvia and Lithuania
• until 1990 in Moldova and Ukraine
• until 1991 in Belarus
• between 1989 and 1991 and in 2010 in Samara Oblast.

In 1922–1930 and 1991–1992, Moscow observed Eastern European Time (UTC 02:00). Daylight saving time (UTC 03:00) was observed in the summer of 1991, and the city and region reverted to UTC 03:00 by the summer of 1992.

The time in Moscow has been as follows (the following list of DST usage may not be accurate):

From 1 January 1880	UTC 02:30:17
From 3 July 1916	UTC 02:31:19
From 1 July 1917	UTC 02:31:19 with DST
From 1 July 1919	UTC 03:00 with DST
From 16 August 1919	UTC 03:00
From 14 February 1921	UTC 03:00 with DST
From 1 October 1921	UTC 03:00
From 1 October 1922	UTC 02:00 (EET)
From 21 June 1930	UTC 03:00
From 1 April 1981	UTC 03:00 with DST
From 31 March 1991	UTC 02:00 (EET) with DST
From 19 January 1992	UTC 03:00 with DST
From 27 March 2011	UTC 04:00
From 26 October 2014	UTC 03:00

Anomalies

Since political, in addition to purely geographical, criteria are used in the drawing of time zones, it follows that time zones do not precisely adhere to meridian lines. The MSK (UTC 03:00) time zone, were it drawn by purely geographical terms, would consist of exactly the area between meridians 37°30' E and 52°30' E. As a result, there are European locales that despite lying in an area with a "physical" UTC 03:00 time, are in another time zone; likewise, there are European areas that have gone for UTC 03:00, even though their "physical" time zone is different from that. Following is a list of such anomalies:

Areas located outside UTC 03:00 longitudes using Moscow Time (UTC 03:00) time

Areas west of 37°30' E ("physical" UTC 02:00) that use UTC 03:00

• The entirety of Belarus with 23°10' E as the westernmost point where MSK is used
• Western Russia, including Saint Petersburg, half of Moscow and Crimea

Areas between 52°30' E and 67°30' E ("physical" UTC 04:00) that use UTC 03:00

• Russia, including most of Franz Josef Land, Yuzhny Island, most of Severny Island with an exception to the very east, and some parts of the Russian mainland (Komi Republic, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, east of Kirov Oblast and Tatarstan)

Areas east of 67°30' E ("physical" UTC 05:00) that use UTC 03:00

• The very east of Severny Island in Russia with 69°2' E as the easternmost point where MSK is used

Areas located within UTC 03:00 longitudes (37°30' E – 52°30' E) using other time zones

Areas that use UTC 02:00

• Eastern parts of Ukraine

Areas that use UTC 04:00

• Georgia with an exception of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• The Russian Oblasts of Astrakhan, Samara, Saratov and Ulyanovsk with an exception to the very east
• Western half of the Russian Republic of Udmurtia

Areas that use UTC 05:00

• The western tip of Perm Krai in Russia, and the western parts of the Orenburg Oblast in Russia

See also

• East Africa Time, also in UTC 03:00
• Time in Russia

External links

• Current time in Moscow