In order to unify time across the country the size of Western Europe, most of Kazakhstan’s regions will move their clocks back by one hour at midnight on Thursday, putting the whole country in the UTC+5 (GMT+5) time zone.
Until now, only the country’s western provinces were in that time zone, while others, including main population centers Astana (capital city) and Almaty (most populous city), were an hour ahead. Located in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, which borders Russia and China, stretches 3,000 kilometers (about 1,900 miles) from east to west.
Kazakhstan’s backbone oil industry is concentrated in its west and is therefore unlikely to suffer from any disruptions.