Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent a wire to the leading manager of Russia’s national hockey team Vyacheslav Bykov and invited him to visit his native region. The wire says, ‘All of Chelyabinsk Region rejoiced with you. The local people are proud of the team’s victory as well as of the fact that it happened thanks to your management – the management of someone raised by Chelyabinsk hockey school.’ According to the spokesperson for the Governor, there is going to be a big sports event at the local ice palace upon Bykov’s arrival. The children from all of the region’s hockey school

‘Things are rather hard at VIZ-Stal, Uralmashzavod, Pnevmostroymachina, Concern Kalina, and Yekaterinburg’s other backbone enterprises. The only two companies that managed to raise their shipping output in the first quarter of the year were Uralmashzavod and Ural Civil Aviation Plant, with outputs rising by 29% and 14%, respectively. At the same time, Uralkhimmash, Ural Turbine Plant, and VIZ-Stal’s outputs dropped by 3%, 20%, and 75%, respectively, compared to a year earlier. Pnevmostroymachina is experiencing the greatest difficulties, with output plummeting by 96% compared to the first

‘The country’s cultural heritage (that is, historic buildings) are now being haggled over. These buildings are simply used as a trump card in all sorts of economic games. Paris, for instance, has got about a hundred such buildings, whereas in Sverdlovsk Region, there are 1,200 of them. One can’t help wondering if these buildings are really this important to our culture,’ the owner of Antey Business Center Andrey Gavrilovskiy said at a recent press conference. The whole debate started out when a two-storey Yarutin house that dates back to 1890 was pulled down in the middle of the night in late

Klyuchevsk Ferrous Alloys Works’ stockholders decided in the course of their annual general meeting at Dvurechensk, Sverdlovsk Region, that the dividend for 2008 shouldn’t be declared. The shareholders also settled the number of the plant’s BOD members (namely, five people) and chose UGTM Audit as their independent auditor.

Rostechnadzor (the state technological safety watchdog) keeps looking into a fatal accident at Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) converter shop. It was detected that the pourer (the victim) got smashed and killed between the steel-tapping unit and the protective rails of the casting platform during the installation of a steel ladle. The investigation is being carried out by Rostechnadzor Lipetsk Division’s Committee.

Alisher Usmanov’s Metalloinvest Holding must pay the full sum for the license entitling the company to the development of Russia’s largest Udokanskoye copper deposit in Zabaikalskiy Territory by June 2009, RIA Novosti quoted Anatoly Ledovskikh (head of the Federal Subsoil Resources Agency) as saying. ‘The deadline for the payment is the month of June,’ he said. According to Ledovskikh, the company has already promised to pay the sum in full. ‘In case they fail to do so, they will lose the five billion RUR one has to pay as the down installment for the license,’ RIA Novosti quotes.

The Russian Federation Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov arrived at Shagol military airfield last night, to be greeted by Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin and head of the Urals and Volga Military District Arkadiy Bakhin. The officials then went to Chebarkul and Miass to take a look at Chebarkul division, Ural car factory, and GRTs. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Petr Sumin and Anatoly Serdyukov also spoke about the state defense contracts, financing of Chelyabinsk Region-based defense enterprises, and providing the military with the housing they need.