Russia's president thinks the country had too much time on its hands, so he has eliminated two time zones.
The sprawling country, which takes up about 11 percent of the world’s land mass, used to have 11 time zones, but now has a slightly less-unwieldy nine.
The changes went into effect before dawn Sunday when most of Russia switched to daylight savings time. People in the eliminated time zones didn’t move their clocks an hour ahead.
The eliminated zones covered the Chukotka and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regions in the Pacific Far East and Samara and Udmurtia, two regions in central Russia that now are on the same time as Moscow.
President Dmitry Medvedev pushed the initiative, saying it could help streamline communications and logistics.
