@ western girl and others - Russia is locked on Daylight Savings time, which is unnatural. In winter it's bad for business and bad for the people. Nobody here likes it. In Moscow the sun doesn't rise until almost 10:30am in December. Jared asks a good question: Medvedev said it affected health changing back and forth in summer and winter. As though smoking, alcoholism and atrocious driving aren't the bad guys in this place. Putin promised to scrap it in his election campaign, but somehow didn't get around to it by Autumn.

So Duncan Lucas, forget conspiracy theories. Russia stands to benefit by maximising the TV audience. Why not take advantage of a PR opportunity for a change instead of obstinate oppositionalism?

Changing the time could  have a negative affect on  the performance of the Russian Athletes because time changes have profound physiologi cal effects on the body. The olympic trainers will say no, the olympic accountants and big business  will say yes. My vote is  Give The Russian Athletes full advantage and just say no time change, this is Russia this is the olympics being held in Russia,  and people arriving in Russia  to compete or film in Russia must adapt  to Russia  and  not Russia adapt to them. 

I assume winter time is what Russians call day light savings time? Why did Russia get rid of it in the first place?