Qibla direction in Achinsk

How to face the Qibla in Achinsk

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 21.8° towards south: the result is the bearing of 248.2°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 22° off.

Scholars agree that someone who can see the Kaaba must face it exactly, while someone far away faces its direction (jihat al-Ka‘bah) as precisely as reasonably possible. If a mosque is nearby, its mihrab and prayer lines are the easiest reference, since they were set when the building was laid out. At home, mark the direction once with tape or a small arrow so the whole family prays the same way.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Achinsk to Mecca points to 227.5° (south-west), a full 20.7° away from the true Qibla of 248.2° (west). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 81 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Achinsk first heads west, and that is the direction to face.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 56.2679° N, 90.5015° E to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E). It is the method used by mosque architects and by every serious Qibla calculator, and it gives one exact answer for each point on Earth.

Distance from Achinsk to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 5,654 km from Achinsk as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 5,387 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 7 h 09 min, although most pilgrims from Achinsk connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Achinsk run 4 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Achinsk rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Achinsk

On 235 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Achinsk while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in March (31 days); for example, on 1 March 2027 it happens at 17:46 local time.

On 102 days the sun stands exactly opposite the Qibla: then the shadow of any vertical object, a pole, a door frame or a plumb line, points straight towards Mecca. This is most frequent in July (31 days), for instance on 15 May 2027 at 05:59.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Achinsk: at 16:18 and 16:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Achinsk compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 3,206 km away, the Qibla in Achinsk is turned 71.9° further clockwise (248.2° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 1,833 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Krasnoyarsk (153 km), prays towards 250.8°, a difference of 2.6°.

Across the 158 cities in Russia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 148.7° in Kaliningrad to 305.3° in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, a spread of 156.6°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Russia.

Qibla in cities near Achinsk

• Krasnoyarsk250.8° · 153 km
• Abakan251.1° · 290 km
• Kemerovo244.4° · 293 km
• Kansk253.3° · 322 km
• Mezhdurechensk247.8° · 326 km
• Leninsk-Kuznetsky245.1° · 326 km