Russia's extreme coordinates

I always wanted to know how far Russia stretches geographically. Well, here are some extreme points:

• In the north, continental Russia's Taymyr peninsula ends with Chelyuskin Point (77º43’ N), named after  the famous Arctic explorer. In comparison, Alaska’s northern shore is located at 72º N. The northernmost point of Russia on an island is Cape Fliegeli on Franz Joseph Land’s Rudolf Island at 81º51’ N, just 900 km south of the North Pole. The Soviet Union has unilaterally claimed all the Arctic Ocean north of its shores to the North Pole. The Russian government is trying to make this claim recognized, but so far has met with fierce resistance from Canada, the U.S., and Norway.
• The southernmost point for Russia is Mt. Bazardyuzyu in Dagestan (41º10’N).
• The westernmost point for Russia is on the border with Poland on the Baltic Spit in Kaliningrad region (19º38’E).Of course, this is an exclave, not contiguous Russia's territory.
• The easternmost point is actually located in the Western Hemisphere! Dezhnev Point at 169º40’W overlooking Alaska is on the continent of Eurasia. Dezhnev was a 17th century explorer who apparently was the first European to pass through Bering Strait, without realizing it. (He did not see Alaska at all, probably because of fog.) Ratmanov Island in the Bering Strait is even closer to the U.S., but it is not on the mainland (169º02’W). And no, you cannot see Sarah Palin''s home from Russia :)

Russia's time zones

Russia is the largest country in the world, with the longest west to east extent. Thus, it should have the greatest number of time zones. In my textbook, it says that there are 11 time zones in Russia. Generally, there is one time zone for every 15 degrees of longitude (as there are 360 degrees in a full circle and 24 hours in a day).

However, in 2010 the number was dropped to nine:

As you can see, Kaliningrad region remains in UTC+2 hr zone. Moscow remains in UTC+3 hr, and all other subjects of federation that are in Europe are now on  that same time. Samara, which is the large city and region on the Volga, were the last to be forced to move to this new time, over many local complaints. There is no longer UTC+4 zone in Russia. Urals are in UTC+5 (two hours ahead of Moscow), Central Siberia with Novosibirsk are in UTC+6, Krasnoyarsk +7, Irkutsk +8, Yakutsk +9, Vladivostok +10 (or seven hours ahead of Moscow) and Chukotka and Kamchatka +11. The biggest change happened in the extreme east, where Magadanskaya Oblast and Chukotsky Autonomous Okrug stretch for 3 times zones west to east, now merged into one. They are in UTC+11, or 8 hours ahead. Before the change, Chukotka (and Kamchatka) were an extra hour ahead.

The reason for the change was primarily administrative convenience: when bureaucrats get to work in Moscow, it is already late afternoon in the east of the country, and with 9-hour difference it would be very hard to conduct business over the phone there. With the high centralization of power in Moscow, Far Eastern regions are the most disadvantaged. At the same time, the new system makes local solar time very different from the official time. When a region is put into artificially early timezone, as is now the case in Chukotka or Kamchatka, sun sets too early. Therefore, you get less time with decent daylight outside after work hours. This is particularly significant further south, because in the north one has benefits of polar day during the summer, when the sun either does not set at all, or only for a few hours. In general, few local people seem to like the new system in the Russian Far East.