Information wanted #1: time zone names in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:38:50 +0300
    From:        Yury Tarasievich <yury.tarasievich at gmail.com>
    Message-ID:  <4E818B9A.2000306 at gmail.com>

  | I'd say that the cited request asks for 
  | something that simply isn't there, and never was.

Yes, that's true of most of the world, but most Americans don't
understand, as they've had timezone names, and standardised
abbreviations, essentially forever.

Our problem is that the interface we need to provide was also invented
by Americans, and insists on having a timezone abbreviation for
every timezone - so we're stuck with inventing them for most places
in the world.

ado's request was (I think) largely because if there are any commonly
used abbreviations (even in Russian/Cyrillic, where we need English/Latn)
it makes sense for what we invent to be as close as possible to what is
actually used.

What we should really be doing is making it clear to one and all that
these abbreviations are meaningless, rather than FET or EEFT or BYT or
anything else, call all the Russian (and related) zones "EST" (they're
Eastern, with respect to most of Europe anyway, and they have a standard
time), for no better reason than to make it clear to everyone that the
abbreviations have no practical purpose, and are better never used, anywhere.

kre