Kazakhstan historic time

Sun Nov 16 04:10:16 UTC 2008

Recently I was checking the timezone map from Eric Muller (Adobe) and came
to the conclusion that he had the Kostanai (or Kustanai) area as part of the
Qyzylorda time zone although they are not even adjacent, but still on
comparatively the same longitude. The area of Kostanai I assumed was part of
the main area of Kazakhstan  represented by Asia/Almaty. I am not sure where
Eric got his information from, but the story doesn't end here.

I found a russian astronomical page HYPERLINK
"http://zaytsev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10571"http://zaytsev.com/forum/vie
wtopic.php?p=10571 that raises the issue that this so-called ZET 8 time is
wrong. Here is a translation from Google of the original russian article

=== Quote begin ===
Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm   
ZET Post: Temporary amendments to the ZET    
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Help solve the dilemma with the definition of a temporary correction. I was
born in Kostanai area in November 1976. 
Some astrological programs, including ZET 8, provide a temporary amendment
+4 GMT. At the same time, Moscow is +3 GMT. 
This means that the difference with Moscow entire 1 hour. But it never was. 
The difference has always been 2 hours. And parents attest to the fact that
the difference with Moscow has always been 2 hours. 
The program ZET 8 geo gives a sharp change of a temporary amendment to a
very long period: 
01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00 01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00 
02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00 02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00 
21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00 21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00 
01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00 01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00 
01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00 01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00 

In fact this change temporary amendment in 1956 is due to the change of time
zones. I can not find any information about the change of time zones in
1956, although the time change occurred not only in the Kostanai region. 
This tool, please, if anyone has information about this change of temporary
amendments of 1956, which legislation has been done? Even familiar to
consultants not able to answer that question. Do not mistake that caused
even if Spravochnikov coordinates of the first edition of Cities and
temporary amendments and continually reissued by different authors ...  Let
us find the truth in this matter, as he stubbornly insist that the time of
my birth at +1 GMT differs from the time in the program and is +5 GMT. I
think if I would have the rights to many "go" horoscopes ... But it is still
"a friend of Plato me, but the truth is more expensive ..."  
=== Quote end ===

I guess you can't expect miracles from an automated translation. What I
understand from the email is that this person claims to have been born in
Kostanai in 1976 and that time there since has "always" been GMT+5 or rather
Moscow time plus 2 hours. This does not correspond to the Asia/Almaty time
zone but corresponds pretty well with the Asia/Qyzylorda time zone. The
thread is not faultless for instance another person grabs a part of the
World Time Explorer file Historic.txt and concludes that Astana was on GMT+5
from 1930 to 1991 while in fact the correct number is GMT+6

I might be exaggerated in assuming this is authoritative information (yet)
but all the same perhaps readers of this mailing list have more information
they can share.

The mixture of Eric's map with the administrative regions however shows
another difference that I can't explain, see the following map:

HYPERLINK
"http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/Kustanai-2008-11-09.png"http://www.worldti
meexplorer.com/Kustanai-2008-11-09.png 

The red borders are the time zones of his map. The black zones are the
recent administrative regions, as we can also see on this wikipedia map of
the Kostanai region:
HYPERLINK
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kost_obl.svg"http://en.wikipedia.org/wik
i/Image:Kost_obl.svg but Eric's map contains a bite of the Astana area.

In conclusion if the Kustanai/Kostanai region has always been on Qyzylorda
time, we don't have to do anything to Kazakhstan timezones but it would be
good to document this on the notes to the Asia/Qyzylorda time zone. Whether
the Kustanai region covers modern-time administrative area or not will then
be very important to the maps of Eric and WTE, but not directly to the tz
database. Also I think it would be good to add all current administrative
regions of Kazakhstan to the notes of the asia file.

Any comments are welcome.

- Jesper Nørgaard Welen

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