Albert Einstein proved that time can warp. But officials in Kazakhstan are facing lots of complaints over efforts to make time bend to their will.

A presidential decree issued in early 2024 established a single time zone across Kazakhstan, a country that stretches almost 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometres) from west to east. Previously the country had been divided into two time zones, with major cities including Almaty and Astana six hours ahead of GMT/UTC, and the western energy-producing region five hours ahead. 

Now that winter is setting in, with its short days and long nights, the unification of time is causing a lot of grousing in the most populated parts of the country. The time change means that darkness descends extra early these days in eastern Kazakhstan, around 3pm. During the summer, the complaint was just the opposite: sunrise came too early, at around 3am.

Photos and videos taken recently at the same time are circulating these days on social networks: when, for example, night has fallen in the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk), the administrative centre of the East Kazakhstan region, at the same time the sun is shining brightly in Aktau, a city on the Caspian Sea.

Easterners are feeling particularly aggrieved by the subtraction of daylight, offering a variety of reasons for discontent. Older people complain about feeling unwell, with many citing a loss of strength and a growing sense of apathy. Meanwhile, parents of schoolchildren who attend school in the afternoon fear for the safety of their children, since they now return home in the dark, along unlit or dimly lit streets. In addition, teachers in Oskemen report a decrease in attention spans among students in the afternoon.

“They stole daytime from us,” complained Almaty blogger Sergazy Toktarbek, who claimed he fell into a depression because of the time change. Another social network commentator said officials had committed a “crime against millions of Kazakhstanis.”

Officials contend that they were motivated to make the time change to rectify an historical injustice. According to the Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev, Kazakhstan existed with the current, unified time zone of +5 UTC until the 1930s. “During the Soviet period, Kazakhstan changed its natural time zone eight times by order in the interests of the command-planned economy,” Shakkaliyev said during a recent government meeting, referring to Stalinist central planners in Moscow. “As a result... we lived in time zones that did not correspond to the natural cycle.”

The time transition is having negative economic consequences for small business owners, especially in eastern sections of the country. For example, Rustam Adamov, head of the Restaurateurs’ Association of East Kazakhstan Region, said there has been a notable decline in the number of people eating out or going to entertainment venues at night.

“People get more tired at work and go home to rest, rather than to restaurants,” Adamov, who owns a chain of restaurants in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk, told Eurasianet. The number of customers has fallen by about a third, he added. 

In addition, businesses’ costs are mounting: the early onset of darkness means higher electricity bills. Adamov said a crisis is brewing for the hospitality industry in Kazakhstan, and some restaurants and cafes are starting to close. 

“This has never happened before, not counting the pandemic,” he said.

The government has so far rejected two citizens’ petitions to reverse the time change. The initiator of one of the rejected petitions, activist Kazbek Beisebaev, suggested on social media, citing an unnamed source in Astana, that officials want a single time zone because it makes the country easier to manage.

Judging by the social media mood, activists seem intent on pressing ahead with efforts to turn back the clock to a two time zone era. One blogger from Oskemen, Kristina Dautova, found a “simple” way to protest by manually changing her phone, pushing time forward by an hour.

Almaz Kumenov is an Almaty-based journalist.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.