Russia may drop two time zones when it switches...

He argued that multiple time zones created difficulties in uniting a country of Russia"s size and pointed to the United States and China, other large countries which effectively cope with fewer time zones.

Daylight saving time was introduced in the Soviet Union to reduce energy consumption by making the most of longer days in summer. Russia changes to and from daylight saving time on the same dates as Europe, moving clocks forward one hour on the last Sunday of March and back one hour on the last Sunday of October.

MOSCOW, March 17 (RIA Novosti)