YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, December 29. /TASS/. Russia’s Far-Eastern Sakhalin region may move its time an hour forwards already in 2016, or at least the regional authorities hope so.
They have taken an opinion poll, the results of which show the residents of the region find the current time to be discomforting.
"On Monday, officials in Moscow supported the initiative of the Sakhalin people," the regional administration said in a press release. "A commission of the Russian government endorsed a bill on the change of the time zone. It proposes to place the Sakhalin region into the 10th Time Zone, which means Moscow Standard Time plus 8 hours.
Earlier, the draft was adopted by the Presidential Administration and seven federal ministries.
The Sakhalin government organized the poll after numerous appeals from local residents. Almost 93% of those polled voted in favor of moving time an hour forwards.
"I hope there will be concrete results there will be concrete results before next summer because it’s in the summer that the shortage of daytime if felt," Governor Oleg Kozhemyako was quoted as saying. "People get home from work and then it’s dark literally in a twinkle of an eye."
A bill on Sakhalin’s time zone may be submitted to the State Duma in January 2016.
"In January, we’ll put up the bill for a review by the Duma committee for public health and I think we’ll get positive results," Duma deputy Georgy Karlov said. He believes the Duma will adopt the bill before the completion of the spring session.
Once the law takes effect, the jet lag between Moscow and Sakhalin will be eight hours instead of seven hours at present.