Aram Ter-Ghazaryan Who benefits from changing time? On the next proposal to introduce winter and summer time in Russia 23.06.2023, 08:15

Long gone are the days when lawmakers drafted useless and irrelevant bills, for example, on pension renaming or forced marriage with prostitutes. And so, whatever you call it, it was clear that very few people counted on retirement. Escorted marriages happen to almost every second gossip hero, according to Telegram channels. Deputies today are more subtle – they are playing on the psychological trauma of the Russians. Therefore, Mikhail Matveev, a member of the Communist Party faction, suggested returning to the transition to winter and summer time for the sake of saving electricity.

It seems that there is nothing new, British, German and Soviet officials have been talking about saving electricity by changing the clock for a hundred years. But Matveev’s initiative went to the ears of half the country. As usual, no one would mind if the couch experts made some noise and calmed down. But a whole army of experts was involved in the conflict. Sociologists began to think, doctors took a wait-and-see attitude, political scientists turned their attention to economists, and economists quickly split into two groups. Opponents of the return to summer and winter time believe that today the change of clocks can only benefit miners who spend thousands of kilowatts per day, because for ordinary consumers the savings of 0.2% are not noticeable at all. And even large industrial establishments with billions of dollars in turnover will only be able to afford a shop’s two-month salary fund. In the USSR, where industry, transportation and trade belonged to the state, a huge saving of 0.2% was achieved. Is the return to the old system today a sign for the start of large-scale industrialization? It doesn’t seem so.

Supporters of the bill recalled that when the transition was canceled in 2011 and 2014, it seemed to everyone that Russia could quietly exist for decades on imports, paying with natural resources. No one seriously thought about the development of the industry. But today, even the most ardent advocates of the gas station country project talk about the need to have their own production. This means that new businesses must be built and the old practice maintained. At the same time, it is also quiet that the 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours, with a total volume of 1 trillion 122 billion, which caused the conflict to flare up, will not help industrialization in any way. Previously, factories and factories operated during daylight hours and it made sense to get workers to the machines early. Today, however, almost all production facilities operate around the clock.

On the contrary, the costs of reconfiguring support systems for a new time, changing migration schedules and reprogramming servers will cover the 0.2% saved. Only a return to electricity prices at least a decade ago will help the industry. But that will definitely not happen. Especially after Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s order to increase the electricity tariff for legal entities by almost 6.3% in 2023. The reason, as usual, was that the networks reorganized all of Russia.

A little later, doctors and sociologists joined the discussion. Doctors are concerned about the sharp increase in cardiovascular disease and the increase in suicide attempts, which are observed with each transition to the season, because between suicides it has always been beloved enough to turn arrows. And sociologists were concerned about the growth of the neuroticism of society in the days of the transition to summer and winter time.

As a result, both parties agreed that only pharmacy chains and drug manufacturers would benefit. But even without new laws, the Russian drug market grew by 12% to 2.27 trillion rubles in 2022 and continues to grow in 2023. So it makes no sense for pharmaceutical companies to incentivize laws across the country for the sake of a small increase in sales for two weeks a year. For some reason no one thought of it.

Also, no one paid attention to the fact that we have been one hour ahead of astronomical time since 2014. That is, we are using the directive tense introduced in 1930. And most interestingly, deputy Mikhail Matveev, in response to his initiative, almost immediately announced the negative outcome of the Russian government. This means that the bill will not pass. However, experts continue to argue even though they know this.

We all like to argue sometimes. I remember how in second grade my friend and I rushed to her house after school to spend time watching cartoons. But one day, when the country switched to winter time, he forgot to turn the hands back and our children’s wristwatches showed different times. He was at half past two, I was at half past one. We had to decide – we were waiting for the bus that was supposed to arrive at 12.30 or we were walking to catch the middle of the cartoon. While we were standing at the bus stop and arguing about who should show the time more accurately, the bus came, dropped the passengers and left without us… Thus, a strong boyfriend friendship broke down. Since then, I have been particularly scrupulous about the procedure for changing the watch, considering that my concern is an acceptable “fashion”, one of these quirks is that without it a person is not a person and life becomes boring. But a few days ago, it turned out that we, “wounded” over time, make up almost half of the country.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.