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Duma to consider bill on "winter time" with no return to summer clock

The MP believes that the bill might be passed by the Duma quite soon, and this autumn Russia will already move the clocks one hour backwards

MOSCOW, September 20 (Itar-Tass) — A bill on switching over to "winter time" submitted to the State Duma for approval on Thursday envisages no return to a seasonable change of the time zone. The author of the bill is Chairman of the Duma Committee on Health Protection Sergei Kalashnikov.

The MP believes that the bill might be passed by the Duma quite soon, and this autumn Russia will already move the clocks one hour backwards. The Russian government shares the understanding of the problem, the MP told journalists on Thursday.

"We suggest moving the clock one hour backwards to set winter time, and then 54 territories in Russia will live in an astronomically correct time zone, while a seasonable change of the time zone to summer time should be dropped," Kalashnikov said.

Deputies of the LDPR faction in the State Duma submitted a similar draft which also envisages putting the clock one hour backwards and establishing Moscow time as the time of the geographical time zone plus one hour. The establishment of the Moscow time and consequently, local time, will enable to use daylight to a full extent in a summer period and curtail a negative impact of a shortage of daylight in winter," the bill proposed by the LDPR said.

Andrei Isayev from the United Russia party, who heads the Duma Committee on Labor and Social Policy, believes that many will support these initiatives because it means living more comfortably than in a zone of a permanent summer time. "Schoolchildren will not have to wake up when dawn has not broken yet," Isayev said. "I think it coincides with the wish to reject perpetual changes and simultaneously establish a more convenient and comfortable winter time. "I think the idea is a good one," Isayev said, but specified that it was his "personal opinion."