Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport and Rusgrad Construction Company are believed to have violated the law on infrastructure systems hookup, the regional public prosecution authorities for transportation report. While Rusgrad was putting up a hotel complex on the land allotment provided by Koltsovo Airport, the electricity was being supplied without any permission from Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state technological safety watchdog). What is more, the builder never signed any electricity supply agreements. Koltsovo Airport and Rusgrad’s management have been ordered

‘We have been gradually switching our workers to a shorter working day and sending them on forced leaves since November 2008. During the current financial crisis, our shipments output went down by 50% to 60%, that is, from 450 million RUR to 150 million RUR worth of produce,’ Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation’s General Director Nazim Efendiev said in the course of a round table discussion on the crisis-defying measures in the industrial sector. ‘Last fall, even the contracts we got prepaid on had to be halted because of the crisis. Moreover, some of our customers are even unable to pay

‘UC RUSAL owes our company scores of millions of rubles for the goods we delivered to them as early as six months ago. This February, RUSAL has sent us a letter asking for a thirty-percent discount on the machinery we have already shipped (and which they are using already). If we agree, Uralpromoborudovaniye will be placed on UC RUSAL’s top priority creditors list; if we don’t, we’ll only be on the sixth-order list. Yet even if we go for the first option, it’s still unclear just when exactly we’ll get paid, since the payment date hasn’t been set. RUSAL claims the debt will be paid off all in

‘The current economic crisis in Russia opens way to raider attacks and hostile takeovers. Economic troubles (mainly companies’ debts) make businesses more vulnerable and less capable of countering such strikes. Living within the crisis information field lets offenders hide their attacks under the overall deluge of negative data; alternatively, takeover attempts can be easily disguised as ‘financial aid’. All this poses additional threats for a business’s economic security,’ Europe-Asia Information and Consulting Center’s General Director Oleg Borisov said to an UrBC reporter. ‘We haven’t got

Ural Airlines is to start operating its new Saint Petersburg-Kulyab flights on February 18, 2009. The flights are to be operated once a week, that is, every Wednesday. The airplane takes off in Saint Petersburg at 12.15 PM and arrives in Kulyab at 7.10 PM. The cheapest tickets are available for ?235 (plus the fuel fee). Then, the plane leaves Kulyab at 8.40 PM and arrives in Saint Petersburg at 12.05 AM on Thursday. The cheapest tickets are available for ?230 (plus the fuel fee). The departure and arrival time is local, the company’s press officer reports. Once the carrier acquired more A 320