Dear Paul, I have been in contact with a Russian astronomer in Murmansk, as well as someone who works in what would be the Department of Transportation in the US. They both say that Kirov is GMT+4, and that it uses daylight savings time. I can write the astronomer again and see if anything has changed, but it is via surface mail, and takes about a month to get a reply. Rives On May 13, 2006, at 7:12 PM, Jesper Norgaard Welen wrote:
The Kirov timezone according to the tz database is GMT+3. As you will remember in an earlier mail I could not find any mention of the timezone directly in the page of the Kirovskaya oblast' in http://www.gov-vyatka.ru/ however this page pointed to another page http://www.gismeteo.ru/weather/towns/27196.htm that has sunrise and sunset times indicating that Kirov is on GMT+3.
Now I have found a page that points to this same page, but explicitly defines Kirov as being on GMT+4: From main page http://map.rin.ru selecting Kirovskaya obl. http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=kirov you can see just below the link to the www.gismeteo.ru link that it specifies explicitly GMT+4
The other links confirm what we think for other oblast's in the area: Samarskaya oblast' on GMT+4: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=samara Udmurtskaya oblast' on GMT+4: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=udmurt Volgogradskaya oblast' on GMT+3: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=volga Astrakhanskaya oblast' on GMT+3: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=astrah Saratovskaya oblast' on GMT+3: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=saratov Komi republic on GMT+3: http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main.pl?Region=komi
This page has a summary of time differences from Moscow time, and shows Kirov as being on Moscow time, e.g. GMT+3: http://www.bereg.ru/sprav_info/inform/time.shtml
As we know from an earlier email from Paul Eggert, Shanks & Pottenger (2003) has Kirov on GMT+4.
I'm afraid Kirov is a difficult case. I have changed it myself in World Time Explorer 4 times from between GMT+4 and GMT+3: February 23, 2000 GMT+4 to GMT+3 January 21, 2001 GMT+3 to GMT+4 June 18, 2001 GMT+4 to GMT+3 October 2, 2002 GMT+3 to GMT+4 Each time I was convinced I had found a better source. So who are we to believe? We have still not found any official russian page that gives the GMT offset explicitly.
- Jesper
Jesper Nørgaard Welen Email: jnorgard@Prodigy.Net.mx Project Leader (Líder de Proyecto) Software CIMMYT - Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz El Batán Texcoco, Edo. de México CP 56130 MEXICO Tel.: +52 (55) 58-04-20-04 ext. 1374 Fax: +52 (55) 58-04-75-58 Tel. Casa: 53-10-05-95 ó 53-10-97-78 Download the free program World Time Explorer, I made: http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/index.html