DST in ex-USSR

[Paul Eggert]

   Date: 20 Apr 96 00:49:39 EDT
   From: Chris Carrier <72157.3334 at CompuServe.COM>

   does anyone know what dates Russia and the rest of the CIS
   will be observing daylight time on this year?

Currently the tz tables have Russia observing DST from Mar lastSun
2:00s to Sep lastSun 2:00s.  These rules were last confirmed in 1994
by someone in Russia, but I received an indirect confirmation this
month from Kazakhstan.

The tz tables have the western CIS (e.g. Belarus, Ukraine) observing
DST for another month (to Oct lastSun 2:00s), which differs from the
EU rules only in time of switchover.  (There's one exception: Crimea,
which is known to use the same rules as Moscow.)  I wouldn't be
surprised if some of these countries use the EU switchover time
(1:00u) these days.  I also wouldn't be surprised if Belarus actually
uses the same rules as Moscow these days, due to its recent efforts to
rejoin Russia.

For the rest of the CIS, we have good data only for Kazakhstan, which
uses the same DST rules as Russia.  The USNO reports that Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan no longer use DST,
so that's the way they're entered in the tz database.  For Armenia and
Kirgizstan the USNO says only that they use DST; I've guessed the
rules are still the same as Russia, for lack of better data.  Except
for Kazakhstan, all these entries are a bit dubious.