For four years now, social activists and scientists have been talking about the need for our country to get out of the gloom.
Four years ago, the State Duma canceled daylight saving time in Russia and the sun began to "turn off" an hour earlier. For a northern country like ours, where we already spend a long winter in the dark, this decision looked, to put it mildly, strange. Since then, attempts have been made to emerge from the gloom in our country. To regain the sun, 11 regions of the country over the past four years have explicitly switched to another time zone. And enthusiasts with enviable regularity try to resolve this issue at the federal level. As recently as February of this year, a bill on the return of daylight saving time was introduced to the State Duma, but was rejected. Several months have passed and an initiative group led by Kaliningrad activist Dmitry Paseka again raised this issue within the framework of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.
- Why do we come back to this topic again and again? - says Dmitry. - Because in 2014, the State Duma transferred the country to permanent winter time on the basis of inaccurate information. The deputies turned the results of scientific research upside down! Scientists talked about the advisability of introducing daylight saving time, deputies waving the same research stated that summer time is harmful to health. There was a direct manipulation of numbers and adjustment of data to the desired result. For example, there was a terrible figure about "the growth of suicides by 66%." We began to find out and it turned out that in reality we are talking about a random increase from 3 to 5 cases in a given year in one of the cities. In another case, it was argued that summer time was "to blame" for the increase in the number of calls for ambulances. What is the essence of this trick? Watch your hands: it is knownthat on Mondays the number of calls increases by 10-15 percent. To fit the numbers, in one case, they took the time period without taking into account Monday (for example, from Tuesday to Friday), and in the other - where it was necessary to catch up with the horror about summer time - Monday was taken into account. As a result of such simple manipulations, there was an increase in health complaints. Elections have now taken place, the composition of the Duma has changed and we expect that the deputies of the new convocation will correct the mistake of their colleagues.that the deputies of the new convocation will correct the mistake of their colleagues.that the deputies of the new convocation will correct the mistake of their colleagues.
This is the battle of the forces of light and TV advertisers
Arkady Tishkov, Doctor of Science and Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been the head of the working group on time reform in Russia since 2008.
- I certainly support this initiative, but I wanted the guys not to reinvent the wheel, but to use the developments of our group, - says Arkady Alexandrovich. - After our work ended in 2011 with the adoption of the law "On the Calculation of Time" and the country began to live according to summer time, monitoring of the situation in 14 departments began. And positive results were shown on tens of thousands of pages of departmental reports: the Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke about a decrease in the number of accidents in the evening and a reduction in crime. There are fewer cases of injuries at enterprises, doctors reported on a decrease in the number of desynchronosis (this is a violation of biorhythms) - in 75 regions such cases were not indicated at all. But shortly before the Olympics in Sochi, advertisers staged a real hunt for people. I have never faced such massive pressure. Deputies,who recently voted for daylight saving time suddenly began to change their position by 180 degrees. Each faction began to put forward its own bill on the transition in the winter. I, as the head of the working group, wrote a negative opinion on all these 6 bills.
Did they listen to you?
Promotional video:
- Nothing like this! They turned everything inside out. They say to me: "Are you out of your mind? Look, here is the latest data from Novosibirsk on the growth of heart attacks and strokes due to the translation of arrows!" I explain: pardon me, no one has changed the clock in the country for three years now, we live in summer time. And they don't want to know anything! And they just kicked me out of the discussion room, they didn't give me the floor.
Who was behind the decision to switch to winter time?
“The only lobbyist was TV advertisers. They do not need people resting in parks, on sports fields or walking around the city. It was necessary to "turn off" the sun outside in order to drive people to the TV sets. Just imagine: today, even at 12 o'clock in the morning, 30 million people in the country are sitting in front of a television box! The country was imposed a nocturnal lifestyle.
Benefits with different time systems on the example of Moscow.
ASTRONOM'S OPINION
Daylight saving time provides 12 additional daylight hours per year
"Owls" and "larks" are ready to argue to the point of hoarseness about the convenience of a particular time frame. But these are all emotions. Is there a tangible effect of applying the three existing options: winter time, daylight saving time and seasonal clock adjustment?
Astronomer Oleg Ugolnikov, senior researcher at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, provided interesting calculations on the example of Moscow.
“Different groups of people have their own priorities,” says the scientist. - But there are four main ones. First, the timeline used should give us more sunlight when people are awake. Let's take the period from 7 am to 11 pm as active time. Daylight saving time will give us an increase of 192 hours of daylight time per year (see table). That's a lot - almost 12 days of sunshine that we are losing today. A seasonal transfer gives approximately the same benefit.
The second important criterion when choosing a time system is daylight hours for evening leisure and sports. Here summer time is a huge benefit, increasing your outdoor relaxation time by a third - plus 108 hours! The third factor is the ease of lifting, it is easier for people to wake up when the sun is outside the window. In daylight saving time, you will have to get up in the dark 53 days longer. And the illumination of roads during rush hours (this is the fourth factor) is practically the same during summer and winter time.
From the point of view of mathematical logic, the most convenient option for Russia is the seasonal translation of the arrows. It allows you to "kill" all birds with one stone. But if you believe that moving the arrows twice a year causes people great inconvenience, then there are two reporting systems. At the same time, it seems that we have chosen the most irrational of all the options - except for a more comfortable rise in the morning, winter time does nothing else.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
