Viktor BALOHA: “Our biorhythms are closer to European ones”

Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloha has asked the Verkhovna Rada speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to move for review of the parliament’s decision on changes in the method of time-keeping in Ukraine, we learned from the minister’s letter to Lytvyn.

According to the ministry’s press service, “we are receiving numerous appeals from citizens now, including those from medical specialists, meteorologists, teachers which emphasize that the decision was taken without due consideration of relevant proposals from scientists and experts, as well as public opinion.” The ministry noted that its head regarded “the decision to employ the UTC+02 time zone with the addition of one hour in Ukraine as likely to have a negative impact on functioning of a large number of Ukrainian citizens, harm their health, lead to certain economic losses, and generally trouble people’s lives.” Baloha noted that residents of the country’s western regions would be affected worst, as they would not see daylight in winter before 9 a.m., should the new regulations remain in effect.

Baloha said that given the geographical position of Ukraine, scientists, including those from the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, considered the UTC+02 time zone which most closely corresponds to the astronomical time in Ukraine, to be a natural choice that is justified from the perspective of public health and the nation’s economic interests, too. The UTC+02 time zone corresponds to what we know as winter daylight saving time. The ministry’s press service added that the vast majority of specialists preferred conversion to winter time once and for all. However, according to experts, Ukraine actually encompasses two natural time zones, as its western regions are more comfortable with the European time, while the Moscow time suits the southern and eastern provinces better.

One is, however, left wondering why the ministry had not raised this issue before, and why experts were not consulted at all? Surprise is no excuse here, as the draft of the Resolution No. 8330, which was carried by the smallest majority vote possible in the Verkhovna Rada on September 20, was submitted to the parliament by the Party of Regions’ MP Oleh Nadosha as early as this April. Moreover, Ukraine followed Russia and Belarus in its decision to abolish the winter daylight saving time.

Mykhailo Kuryk, Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics, Professor, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Human Ecology:

“Every human being is subject to the biorhythm of the territory where he or she lives. This means that our body’s organs alter their activity levels every two hours, and, as there are 12 of them, the body is undergoing dynamic changes all the time. The permanent resident of certain territory has to adjust to the biorhythms that are determined by nature. When our own body’s ‘time zone’ generally matches the time zone in which we live, we are free from troubles that can occur to flight attendants, long-haul drivers, seamen, that is, people who cross time zones all the time. They are vulnerable because disrupted biorhythm disrupts physiology, too, and these people feel it. At the same time, if we just refrain from adjusting clocks by one hour, then, according to official medical science, we are unlikely to experience any appreciable changes in our bodies’ functioning. Our institute devotes a lot of time to rhythmological studies and we can say that one-hour clock shift has no effects on physiological or functional health status of the body.

In Ukraine, however, we have our own east and west, and the eastern and southern regions are suited better by the Moscow time, while the western ones are closer to the Central European time zone. These are peculiarities of our country, but to divide Ukraine along these lines would be a very wrong decision. It would be nice for the country to employ a single time zone. Reasonable single time zone for Ukraine in its entirety is closer to the European one. I think that we need to choose it as our time zone once and for all. To all those health-concerned people, I say that it is determined by our environment to a greater extent than by shifting or non-shifting clock by one hour. Environmental and social problems, stressful situations have significantly more of a negative impact on us. They are more harmful than non-synchronous influences on our rhythms.”