Krasnoyarsk, Russia · UTC+7 ☆

Krasnoyarsk straddles the Yenisei River in the middle of Siberia, a city of over a million that grew from a 17th-century Cossack fort into a major industrial center. It runs on Asia/Krasnoyarsk time, UTC+7, year-round. Russia abolished daylight saving in 2014.

the great dam and Trans-Siberian split clocks

The Yenisei is one of the world’s great rivers, and the Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Dam, completed in 1972, is among the world’s largest hydroelectric plants by capacity at 6,000 MW.[1] The dam created the massive Krasnoyarsk Reservoir and fundamentally altered the local environment. It also created a 24-hour industrial operation that runs regardless of solar time.

At 56 degrees north, Krasnoyarsk has dramatic seasonal light. Summer evenings in June stay bright past 11pm. December days last barely 8 hours. The permanent UTC+7 setting (without DST) means that in summer, the clock doesn’t advance to take advantage of late evenings, which makes late summer nights unusually bright by clock standards.

Krasnoyarsk is a significant stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Until August 2018, Russian Railways used Moscow Time for all ticketing regardless of local time — a 4-hour difference here at UTC+7 versus Moscow’s UTC+3 — before switching to local time system-wide.[2] Travelers on the train long had to navigate this split to avoid missing their stops.

9am in Krasnoyarsk is 2am in London, seven hours ahead of GMT.

Read more about time in Russia →