The famous singer Julio Iglesias had to cancel his concert in Yekaterinburg in the middle of the show due to some heart problems. This is the first time in his career that the singer had to stop in mid-concert and leave the stage. The concert started right in time at 7 PM. After Julio Iglesias sang two songs, he addressed the audience in English. The concert coordinators translated his words. ‘I don’t feel good, I don’t look good and I’m having some problems with my voice. This is the first time I have to stop my own concert. I will try to perform for you tomorrow. I love you very much,’ the

‘After the jet fuel price soared, all the flights we offer had to become more expensive. The price increase has affected the European destinations particularly badly. As for such popular vacation places as Turkey and Egypt, prices haven’t gone up as much yet, since most of the payments for these vacations are made in dollars rather than euros. Nevertheless, the general trend for rising prices is quite obvious,’ Olga Svechkova of Fond Mira Travel Agency said to UrBC. Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg last raised fuel prices from 26,940 RUR per ton to 30,600 RUR per ton, or by 13.6%. ‘The fuel

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel chaired a meeting of the region’s foreign investments committee to discuss the efficiency of foreign investments in Sverdlovsk Region’s economy and the potential increase in these investments. The Governor said the region was one of Russia’s top economic investment targets and received 160 billion RUR and $1.5bn worth of investments in the year 2007 alone. In addition, Sverdlovsk Region’s foreign trade turnover exceeded $12bn last year. At the same time, to reach the goals set by President Dmitriy Medvedev, one needs not only to attract more

URSA Bank’s stockholders attended the bank’s annual general meeting on June 20, 2008. In the course of the meeting, the stockholders confirmed the company’s annual report, the annual accounting balance sheet, and the profit and loss statement for the financial year 2007. The shareholders decided to distribute URSA Bank’s profit for 2007 (672,682,293.93 RUR, calculated in accordance with the Russian accounting standards) in the following way: 181,333 RUR and $22.733m will be used for making dividend payments (the latter sum is to be used for making dividend payments on the preference shares of

The Finance magazine came up with the rating of Russia’s major banks, with SKB-Bank featured among the country’s top ten banks in terms of funds increase. According to the results of a recent banking market research (available from the magazine’s website), SKB-Bank is a leading bank in terms of funds growth: the bank’s capital has gone up by 33% since the beginning of the year, which secured the company the 8th best position among Russia’s largest banks. SKB-Bank’s own funds came to more than 5 billion RUR on June 1, 2008.

Academic construction project managers have decided on how to securely protect the future district’s dwellers as well as their apartments and property. These projects have been coordinated with the state, municipal, and regional authorities and they are to be implemented by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Sova Rescue Service. ‘We chose Sova because RENOVA StroyGroup only employs the best professionals for Russia’s largest and most unique construction project,’ RENOVA’s press officer reports. According to the management’s decision, every building’s entrances will be fitted with video door

‘METCOMBANK has been concentrating on bank card projects for the last few years, and without our own processing center, we had to use the services of one Moscow-based bank. But this gradually proved insufficient, we kept facing certain technical limitations that the current scheme could not overcome,’ METCOMBANK’s Plastic Cards Director Alexander Peshin said to UrBC. ‘So we finally decided to set up our own processing center. The center is nearly ready to be launched and is expected to start operating at the beginning of July 2008. After we switch to the new processing system (provided for us

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank valid for 1 to 3 years plummeted by 100% (from 16.514 million RUR to zero) in January-May 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Bank24.ru valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 85.55% (from 191.292 million RUR to 27.636 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

FINAM Investment Company reduced its just price assessment of Uralsvyazinform’s ordinary shares from $.064 to $.063; FINAM believes the mobile and landline operator’s preference shares must drop from $.04 to $.034. The company still feels it’s best not to sell the shares right now. Apart from that, FINAM’s analysts believe Uralsvyazinform is slightly overpriced at the moment and see no noticeable factors that could enhance the operator’s worth. FINAM’s assessment of Uralsvyazinform’s shares was modified after the investment company’s experts looked into the operator’s audited non-consolidated

‘In case a customer finds out the car they bought is defective, both the producer factory and the dealer must be responsible for handling the problem,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee Andrei Artemiev said to UrBC. According to certain customers, Yekaterinburg-based Okami Vostok has sold cars with flaws that remained unheeded during the pre-sale preparation. Andrei Artemiev believes it’s not for the customer to worry over how the car factory and the dealer are going to fix the problem. The main thing is for the defect to be rectified. ‘Should the dealer or the producer