Cows will be calmer, doctors happier and crooks less active.
That's the thinking as Russia puts forward its clocks for the last time this weekend.
Leading the way in an incipient global trend that rejects the notion of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, the Russian authorities believe the move will reduce human – and animal – misery.
It means Russia, which stretches across nine time zones from Kaliningrad in Europe to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific, will stay permanently on summer time from this Sunday, gaining extra daylight in the afternoons during its seemingly interminable winter.
The president, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russians were fed up with the time changes because they caused "stress and illnesses" and "upset the human biorhythm".
"It's irritating, people wake up early and don't know what to do with themselves for the spare hour," he said. "And that's not to mention the unhappy cows and other animals that don't understand the clocks changing and don't understand why the milkmaids come to them at a different time."
The only other country in Europe without switches to and from daylight saving time is Iceland, but Belarus and Ukraine are also considering abandoning the system.
Some critics suggested it was a populist move by the Kremlin to distract from more serious social issues, but many experts supported the idea
