Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin decided that nearly 51 million RUR is to be paid from the region’s budget to the Great Patriotic War veterans, the Leningrad blockade survivors, and death camp prisoners who were under age at the time, on Victory Day. In fact, this 500-ruble allowance per person has been paid for the third time this year. This is a limited list for this difficult year: before the crisis, the allowances used to be paid to all of the region’s retirees. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, the payments will be received by over 95,000 veterans, including nearly

Standard & Poor's affirmed AKB Investbank’s national scale rating at ruBB recently, whereupon they called off this rating upon the bank’s request. ‘As a result, Investbank is no longer being monitored by Standard & Poor's,’ says the agency’s analyst Sergei Voronenko.

Maxi Group looked at the results of its performance in the first quarter of 2009. The holding’s enterprises produced 380,000 tons of steel, 291,000 tons of bar iron, and 37,000 tons of metal goods. This was, respectively, 16%, 27%, and 10% more than in the last quarter of 2008. The company repots this has to do with the metal goods market growing more stable. In addition, the holding produced 44,000 tons of steel ingots. At the same time, Maxi Group’s steel and bar iron output levels dropped by 22% and 10%, respectively, compared with a year earlier.

Pavel Fedulev, who is currently serving his term in prison, has been charged with new offenses described in Article 17 (part 4) and Article 102 (paragraph a) of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Criminal Code and Articles 159 (part 4), Article 33 (part 3), and Article 105 (paragraphs a, g, h) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code. The announcement to this extent was made by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the public prosecution authorities today. For one, the authorities are looking into the assassination of E.B.A. Corporation’s President Andrei Yakushev on May 9, 1995 (this

Sverdlovsk Region’s State Construction Surveillance Administration insists on making UralInvest face administrative liability for an offense described in Article 9.5 (part 1) of the Russian Federation Administrative Code; the Administration also wants the builder to be punished by a ninety-day stoppage, says Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court’s press officer. The plaintiff claims UralInvest has been putting up an apartment block without the necessary construction permit.

URSA Bank raised the interest rates offered on ruble deposits for private individuals by .5% to1% (depending on the amount of money in the deposit and the deposit period) on April 27, 2009. The changes involve three deposit types: the maximum annual interest one can get on Pension Bonus, Guaranteed Income, and Second Salary deposit types now comes to 15.8%, 16%, and 15.75%, respectively, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘The bank has always paid close attention to our customers’ needs and so launched the floating rates principle that allows us to adapt quickly to the market changes. Over

‘Unfortunately, Russian Railways Public Company’s investment project had to be downsized by 40% compared with the year before,’ President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin said in the course of a briefing on the company’s investment program in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region. ‘So now we are not asking to support our investment program so that the money could disappear in people’s pockets. We are asking for help because we are positive that aid to the country’s backbone enterprises is an effective economic tool,’ he added.

McDonald’s is currently negotiating with Yekaterinburg municipal council for a number of land allotments to put up their cafes there, Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva reports. The company currently runs three cafes located in Yekaterinburg’s shopping malls. ‘They asked for six or seven allotments, with four of their applications approved already. Each allotment is about 1,000 square meters in size,’ she adds.

Uralsevergaz announced recently that they were going to limit their natural gas supplies to Uralvagonzavod. ‘The reason for imposing these limitations is a great amount of overdue debt. Uralvagonzavod still hasn’t paid us for the natural gas the enterprise has already consumed; nor are they trying to pay off their debts. The company owes us 305 million RUR at the moment, with the sum rising by another 150 million RUR by the end of April,’ the spokesperson for Uralsevergaz explained to an UrBC reporter. The gas supplier did promise, however, that the limitations would not affect Nizhniy

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin met the Consul General of Hungary in Ekaterinburg Pal Fabian. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, the agenda of their meeting covered issued like Chelyabinsk Region and Hungary’s cooperation in the field of economics, agriculture, and culture. The two parties started working together in 2006 when Sumin visited Budapest as a member of a Russian delegation headed by (then President) Vladimir Putin. Then, a cooperation agreement was signed by Chelyabinsk Region and one of Hungary’s major regions in October 2008. As far as agriculture is

The holders of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Visa Gold card can now win an unforgettable trip to Tokyo if they take part in the bank’s Taste of New Life special offer. All one has to do is use one’s Visa card to pay for at least 1,000 RUR worth of shopping between May 1, 2009 and July 31, 2009. Twenty special prizes (35,000 RUR in one’s bank card account) are provided, and the main prize is a holiday for two in Tokyo. Each bank card transaction improves one’s chances, the bank’s press officer reports. The prize drawing has been scheduled for August 20, 2009.

Uralsvyazinform might quit its membership in the CDMA Network Operators Association. This issue has been placed on the agenda of the annual general meeting by the company’s BOD. The AGM is to take place on June 4, 2009 in Perm.

Alexei Degai is no longer employed in the capacity of Severskiy Pipe Plant’s (Pipe Metallurgical Company, or TMK) CEO. According to the spokesperson for TMK, Degai, who had been running the business for many years, chose to resign for personal reasons. He will be succeeded by former Technical Director Mikhail Zuev.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Tyumen Avto Holding Company against Alliance Motor Yekaterinburg. The plaintiff insists on the defendant paying them 2.76 million RUR and wants their earlier purchase and sale agreement to be declared void. Therefore the 2,233,500 RUR paid for Toyota LC 200 UZJ200L-GNAEKWTK (VIN-JTMNT05J904025192) (invoice ОПА08-52798108/1 as of October 27, 2008) must be paid back, alongside with the 500,000 RUR worth of damages, 28,717 RUR worth of cancellation penalty, and the state duty. Tyumen Avto Holding Company has earlier asked

‘Nizhniy Tagil’s largest enterprise Uralvagonzavod owes Uralsevergaz 305 million RUR (overdue debt included). Our other ‘chronic’ debtor’s (Tagilenergo) debt comes to 234 million RUR,’ Uralsevergaz’s press officer Oleg Vlasov said to an UrBC reporter. ‘We haven’t imposed any sanctions on the debtors as of yet. However, we do have to pay for natural gas transportation in full before May 1, 2009 (because of the ten-day state holiday), so we strongly recommend that Uralvagonzavod, Tagilenergo, and Nizhniy Tagil’s municipal council do try and pay off as much as they can as soon as possible,’ he

The net profit of Uralelectromontazh dropped by 28.009 million RUR (or 98.55%), that is, from 28.421 million RUR in the previous quarter to 412,000 RUR this quarter. The company reports the decrease in net profit has to do with the smaller amount of electric work performed by them.

The authorities are currently interrogating the management of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Bank of Russia’s Main Administration. The inquiries have to do with the disappearance of 955.8 million RUR from Bank VEFK Ural. ‘The inquiry involves the top executives and a number of other employees, since the money vanished during the Central Bank’s scheduled inspection of Bank VEFK Ural. The investigative team had to question these employees’ work ethics. One cannot help wondering why the inspectors never noticed that such an impressive sum of money had disappeared out of Russian Retirement

‘Our company is going trough a difficult time at the moment: the natural gas consumption plummeted in the first quarter of the year, and our consumers owe increasingly more money to us,’ says GAZEX CEO Denis Pasler. In the meantime, the company has promised earlier to invest 110 million RUR in gas network overhauls.

The Russian Federation Federal Insurance Supervision Service decided to suspend the license issued to Uralros Insurance Company (based in Yekaterinburg with file number № 0599, С № 0599 66). The decree (number 174), signed by the Service’s Head Alexander Koval, has already come into force. Uralros Insurance Company is one of Union of Russian Car Insurers members that refused to join the direct loss refund system. The company therefore did not pay its membership fees in the third quarter of 2008 and failed to answer any of the Union’s queries. The company thus came to owe the Union 1.11

Uralfinprombank’s Board of Directors suggested that the annual shareholder meeting should result in the bank’s stockholders doing away with the development fund, the savings fund, and the consumption fund set up earlier. In addition, the bank’s Supervisory Board suggested that the stockholders decide to pass the dividend in the course of the meeting (scheduled for May 15, 2009).