Ural Bank of Sberbank of Russia’s 490 subsidiaries have sent over 2.5 billion RUR worth of money orders through BLITZ since the beginning of the year; this amounts to approximately 50,000 operations. BLITZ is both a convenient and advantageous way to transfer money as quickly as possible. Speed is this system’s major strength: it only takes half an hour for the money to be registered within the system, and another half an hour for the receiver to get their cash. It is as if the customers just keep their money in a sort of hyper-wallet that is available to them or their relatives in any spot

‘RTS stock index had been going down from 2,000 points and stopped at 1,915 points; this week, the figure has been fluctuating between 1,955 and 1,990 points. Due to ambiguity of data on the world markets and lack of domestic news, the market is still looking for a direction. RTS and MICEX indices at the close of business came to 1,960.4 and 3,439.8 points respectively on April 26, 2007,’ says SKB-Bank’s trader Alexander Sterkhov. ‘President’s Putin address to the Federal Assembly has been the highlight of the week. The address covers some of the issues related to how the money accumulated

Russian Copper Company has been trying to build up its ore-processing capacity, their press officer says; the growth dynamics can be seen in the fact that the enterprise handled 4 million tons of ore last year, whereas the figures for 2003 only reached the point of 800,000 tons. This year, 5 million tons of ore are expected to be processed due to launching a number of mines in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities met to discuss the ways of enhancing the efficiency of cooperation in the field of fighting bribery among law-enforcement agencies of different types. It was reported that 270 corruption-related crimes that jeopardized the state and the civil service had been revealed in January-March 2007, compared to only 629 cases disclosed over the entire year 2006. In addition to this, there were more general inspections aimed at finding offenses in the field of state and municipal service: the region’s prosecutors revealed 172 such offenses in the first

GRAN Bank might merge with Investbank in the near future, GRAN’s press release says. GRAN Bank’s BOD meeting resulted in the decision to suggest that the shareholders vote for a merger with Investbank in the course of the annual general meeting. The AGM attendees will also have to consider issues related to reorganization of the company, details of the merger agreement and so on. The directors themselves have already come up with a preliminary approval of the papers needed for the transaction and of the necessary amendments to Investbank’s charter as well as of the provisions regarding the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to profit-making NGOs for a term of up to 30 days went down 11.7% (from 31.715 million RUR to 28 million RUR) in January 2006-March 2007.

Ural State University elected its new Rector, the 45-year-old Yekaterinburg Duma deputy and the Dean of the Department of History Dmitriy Bugrov on April 26, 2007. Five people ran for the post altogether: Dmitriy Bugrov, Dean of the Department of Philosophy Alexander Pertzev, Provost Evgeniy Pamyatnikh, Dean of the Department of Physics Alexei Babushkin, and Director of USU Institute for Management and Entrepreneurship Alexei Klyuev. The election procedure lasted for more than six hours, since all the candidates had to present their development projects first. Then the voters (heads of all of

‘Noviy Grad, one of the local builders, will probably not be able to operate on the regional real estate market any longer; this is quite obvious, given the fact that their general contractor (HydroSpetsStroy Ltd.) is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings with Ms Olga Rushitskaya as their acting trustee in bankruptcy and the company cannot afford to put up any more buildings,’ Director of Dishonest Builders Opposition Fund Konstantin Dushechkin said to UrBC. ‘The question we are most worried about now is what is going to happen to the disadvantaged investors. We hope the authorities withdraw

Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma Budget and Economic Policies Committee analyzed the report on the city’s budget revenues and expenditures in 2006. Financing of social projects and use of money obtained through letting municipal property were the items that received the most attention. The budget revenues reached the point of 15 billion RUR last year, which exceeds the initial target figures by 8.8%. Donations from the regional and federal budgets amounted to 4 billion RUR. Taxpaying businesses still owe the city 1 billion RUR. The budget expenditures amounted to 13.4 billion RUR, which falls

Chelyabinsk customs officers filed 3 administrative suits against trademark violators; the first case involves a Kazakh citizen who was trying to smuggle 15,000 undeclared lighters bearing Cricket trademark in his own car. The automobile was stopped by the officers in the village of Letyagino. Then, Chelyabinsk customs received a complaint from the owner of Stolichnaya trademark regarding violation of his trademark by a Russian citizen. The offender in question was detained in the act of relocating 720 bottles of Stolichnaya without any sales or trademark use permits. Finally, a citizen of

According to the report published on Severnaya Kazna’s official website on April 26, 2007, the bank keeps redistributing its shares among the stockholders. There are 40 of them at the moment, with two shareholders missing from the list as of yet: Russian Tax Association headed by Igor Teushchakov (the company’s share in Severnaya Kazna’s capital used to come to 6.447%, was later reduced to 3.438% and now dropped to.105%; Mr. Teushchakov’s share, however, amounts to 1.52%) and Econometrics headed by Alexander Frolov since mid-March (the company’s share amounts to .951%). All in all, the number

Sverdlovsk Region House of Representatives passed a bill on changes in the legislation on land management within the region after it had been adopted by Sverdlovsk Region Duma. The edited legislation aims to create a new system of managing unlocated land allotments that could ensure that Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for State Property Management has more control over decision-making in terms of offering up patches based in Yekaterinburg.

‘There are virtually no places available for sellers in the local malls: out of 16 trade centers we’ve got, 14 malls are totally filled up, and there is a long waiting list of those wishing to get a place into the bargain. As for the remaining two malls, they can offer round about 500 square meters and their management companies are on the lookout for a tenant who could make the place more popular, so they aren’t willing to let the area to just about anyone,’ Deputy Chairperson of Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee Natalia Firstova said to UrBC. ‘On average, there are 200 to 300

‘The introduction of any strict regulations over how grocery retailers must do business with the regional producers is totally unjustified,’ says Nadezhda Buriko, the spokesperson for Kupets supermarket chain. ‘If customers don’t like their produce, demanding that we sell a certain amount of regionally made foods disadvantages the store, the consumer, and the supplier at the same time. The market tends to get a good deal of self-regulation, and, if there is no demand for such items, you can make the stores sell them, but you can’t make the shoppers buy them. On the other hand, some of the

Russian Copper Company is putting up a mine at Vesenne-Aralchinskoye deposit, reports their press officer; the mine is expected to reach the capacity of .5 million tons of copper-zinc ore a year. The project requires $50 million worth of investments and will be launched in 2009. Besides, Russian Copper Company is going to expand a processing shop at 50-letiya Oktyabrya deposit in order to raise its annual output to 5 million tons of ore, 60,000 tons of copper, and 50,000 tons of zinc. The newly renovated shop will be launched at the beginning of 2008. It will be processing ore from Priorskoye

‘The import of the so-called grey (i.e. illegally made) meat to Russia amounted to 200,000 tons in January-March 2007. This cheap, low-quality frozen meat that had no vitamins or anything left in it was transferred to the country through Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, and Kaliningrad,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Agriculture and Food Anatoly Feoktistov said to UrBC. ‘Rosselkhoznadzor’s ban on meat import from Kazakhstan due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is definitely a good thing. The region’s dwellers won’t risk buying and eating low-quality food; I’m positive

The water level has gone up in most of the local rivers over the last two days, with the highest rise of water level recorded in the River Sosva. 11 bridges have been flooded, 21 settlements with the total population of 2,826 people got isolated from the rest of the world. The water level in the Pyshma now amounts to 509 centimeters against the critical 640 centimeters; the figure comes to 764 centimeters (against the critical 1,140 centimeters) for the Nitsa and to 521 centimeters (against the critical 840 centimeters) in the Tura. Three bridges located in the villages of Zhukovskoye,

Regional statisticians report that the population of Sverdlovsk Region decreased by 10,000 people last year and reached the point of 4,399,700 people on January 1, 2007. Mortality rate went down 27.5% against 2005; the ratio of those dying to those born came to 1/1.4 against 1/1.6 in 2005. 47,300 people were born last year, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 3%; 67,200 people died, which is 8.4% fewer than in 2005. In more than half of the cases (55.6%), death was the result of cardiovascular diseases. People coming to settle in Sverdlovsk Region outnumbered those leaving the

UralSeverGaz summed up the results of its performance during this year’s heating season. Most of the housing maintenance and utilities services that buy their gas accumulated large debts in terms of paying for the gas they had already consumed. The total sum of debts reached the point of 1.775 billion RUR on April 25, 2007, which is thrice the amount recorded in October 2006 when the heating season actually began (650 million). The housing maintenance and utilities services make up only 12% of natural gas consumers, whereas their share of delayed payments amounts to 73%. ‘The end of the

Ural Airlines has come up with new discounts on business class tickets for travelers willing to use Yekaterinburg-Moscow-Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk-Moscow-Chelyabinsk flights. The cheapest tickets can now be bought for 16,000 RUR for Yekaterinburg flight and for 15,000 RUR for Chelyabinsk flight. The price also varies according to the time of the purchase: if one acquires a ticket within a fortnight of Yekaterinburg-Moscow-Yekaterinburg flight, it is only going to cost 16,000 RUR, whereas a passenger buying a ticket a week before the flight will have to pay 19,000 RUR. In addition, there