To get started, let's decide what a time zone is in general. Our planet is conditionally divided into 24 zones, the borders of which stretch from the Northern belt to the Southern along the meridians (if it is ocean space) or according to the sovereign cordons of states (if it is land). Inside one such territory, the same time is accepted. The difference between adjacent belts is exactly an hour. When moving from one zone to another, the minutes and seconds on the dial remain the same. Only an hour hand is translated. This is all theory. But what is the time zone of Turkey? This question is asked by many tourists going on vacation to this country.
For international convenience, a term has been introduced in the world called universal coordinated time. It is called UTC. For fun, this term is also called "Zulu time." It is measured by the sun at its zenith on the Greenwich meridian. Thus, the United Kingdom (and at the same time Ireland and Portugal) lies in this zone - UTC. In this case, the time zone of Turkey is called UTC + 2. This means that when it is midnight in London, it is two nights in Istanbul. By the way, a number of European countries live along with Turkey at this time: the whole Baltic, Ukraine, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece.
According to this feature, the time zone of Turkey is also called Eastern European. In recent years, Russia has been constantly living in the UTC + 4 zone. And from this moment all the difficulties associated with calculating the time difference between Moscow and Istanbul begin. If we are punctual to the end, we must take into account that UTC is always the same, despite the changing seasons of the year. But the “right” time is precisely winter time. This is easy to verify by opening the calendar. During the
vernal equinox (when winter time is in effect) the sun rises and sets at six o'clock, reaching its zenith at 12.00. And on September 21, the sun rises at 7.00. Zenith, respectively, at 13.00.
Therefore, the UK in the summer lives according to the so-called GMT (Greenwich local time), but Turkey’s time zone does not change. After all, the country also transfers arrows on the last Sunday of March. And everything goes forward an hour. That is, the time difference between London and Istanbul is always constant. This is plus two hours in the “City on Two Continents”.
But what about in Russia? At the end of October, our arrows do not turn back, and the time zone changes. Turkey-Moscow live in the summer with a difference of one, and in the winter - in two units of the day. In Western Russia, the time corresponds to UTC + 4 year-round. But in Istanbul in the winter UTC + 2, and in the summer UTC + 3. Thus, in January, when it is noon in Moscow, in Turkey it is only ten in the morning, and in July the time difference is reduced by an hour. Russia is a big country. There are as many as nine time zones. Therefore, to find out what time it is now in Istanbul or on the beaches of Antalya, you should add the difference between local and Moscow time.
In order not to be confused with the UTC constant, it is customary to answer the question what time zone in Turkey is: Eastern European. In the international classification, it is designated by the abbreviation EET or GMT +2. The most ingenious will ask: “Why Eastern European, because time zones run from one pole to another and thus cover other continents - Africa or Asia, for example?” In tropical latitudes, where daylight hours are little dependent on the seasons, countries do not switch to summer time in order to save electricity. They really live on UTC.