As The East Is From The West
As The East Is From The West
Izhevsk, arrival
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Somehow, I arrived safely and in the right place, but it was a little confusing. It was clearly printed on my train ticket that the arrival time would be 00.31 on Sunday the 26th. However, I knew the following things:
1)Izhevsk is one hour ahead of Kazan (and Moscow)
2)Saturday was the last day of Daylight Saving Time
But I did not know:
1)Whose time zone arrival time was printed in
2)At what time Russia changed their clocks from DST to Standard Time
I had heard other passengers talking about Izhevsk as they boarded, so I hoped that some of them would also be getting off there and that by their movements to strip their beds and pack their bags I would be able to tell which of the following was meant by our arrival time.
a)Moscow DST time
b)Moscow Standard Time / Izhevsk DST (one hour past a)
c)Izhevsk Standard Time (one hour past b)
We stopped about an hour before what I had reasoned would most likely be my stop and some people got on. One of them had a seat in the compartment I was in so I asked what stop it was. He said the name of a place I wasn’t familiar with, and when he noticed my confusion he clarified, “Izhevsk.” Well, I started packing up my things very quickly, but he told me, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. There’s another Izhevsk in 20 minutes.”
We sat in that station for a while then slowly moved into the real Izhevsk an hour later. I was delighted that Hannah’s face was the first I saw when stepping down from the train. The one good thing about crossing time zones at the end of Daylight Saving Time is that I didn’t have have to change to my watch.
Hannah and Meredith enjoying a sunny morning by the lake.