OAO Ural Civil Aviation Plant has been placed on the list of companies that owe over 1 million RUR to the Russian Federation budget as of December 15, 2010. The news was announced by Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service.

Flights keep getting delayed at Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport. About fifteen flights will arrive in Yekaterinburg late today. For one, four Nordavia-Regional Airlines flights from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport (733, 734, 743, and 744) are already four hours late. Aeroflot’s Moscow flights are also delayed. Flights 2095 and 2053 from Sheremetyevo have been delayed due to technical problems. This means that flights 2096 and 2054 from Koltsovo (Yekaterinburg) to Sheremetyevo (Moscow) have been delayed as well. Transaero flight 119 Moscow-Yekaterinburg has been delayed by eighteen hours.

The cost of building a high-speed railway connecting Yekaterinburg and Moscow might rise to 3.5 trillion RUR, head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Vladimir Suprun announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘High-Speed Railways, one of Sverdlovsk Region Railways’ daughter enterprises is currently working on this project. Under this project, the railway is supposed to be designed and built with the company’s own funds and will be operated until it pays off, with some federal budget support,’ Suprun said. ‘An ad hoc work team was set up only today, so everything is at its preliminary stage

Russian Railways Public Company can only provide 30% of the total cost of building a high-speed railway between Yekaterinburg and Nizhniy Tagil and only 3% of the total cost of building a Yekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk Railway to make sure they can break even, head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Vladimir Suprun announced at the end-of-year press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘Our final aim is to make sure trains can go at 160 kilometers an hour, which will mean that one can get to Chelyabinsk in three hours and to Nizhniy Tagil in 1.5 hours. It has been preliminarily estimated that putting up

OAO Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) and Rosnano State Corporation launched a joint venture in Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk Region. The new company will deal in precision stainless pipes manufacturing. The launching ceremony was attended by Rosnano’s top executive Anatoly Chubais, RIA Novosti reports. The project will require a total of 3.7 billion RUR worth of investments, with 1.3 billion RUR to be contributed by Rosnano. TMK now owns 51% of the company’s shares; Rosnano has a 49% shareholding in the business.

Dexter Airlines has canceled its flights to and from Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg yet again. For one, flight 9628 from Kurgan to Yekaterinburg was called off. The flight was originally supposed to have arrived at 3:55 PM. What is more, flights from Tyumen and Magnitogorsk, which were to have arrived in Yekaterinburg at 12:00 PM and 4:20 AM today, respectively, were also canceled. The company has already called off some flights a few days earlier. Koltsovo Airport announced on Friday that the flights had been canceled due to technical problems. The airline refuses to provide any comments

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and Russia’s Deputy Economics Minister Oleg Savelyev signed an agreement on behalf of Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development and Sverdlovsk Region Government regarding the launch of Titanium Valley, a special economic zone in Verkhnyaya Salda; they also signed an action plan on the project implementation stages. ‘We are about to start designing a special economic zone, securing a land allotment for the project, and working on its infrastructure. These jobs are to be completed in 2012. We will also start signing our agreements with the

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service Ural Federal District division completed its desk audit of OAO Ural University Complex and OAO Ural Pharmaceutical Holding. At the end of the audit procedures, both companies were ordered to eliminate the detected violations of the Russian legislation and to prevent them in future.

Dexter, an air carrier that has arrived on Yekaterinburg air travel market recently keeps canceling flights from Yekaterinburg. The airline called off seven local area flights today, including flights 9627 from Yekaterinburg to Tyumen (departure time 9:35 AM), 9631 from Yekaterinburg to Kurgan (departure time 1:00 PM), 9653 from Yekaterinburg to Magnitogorsk (departure time 4:55 PM), and 9629 from Yekaterinburg to Tyumen (departure time 9:10 PM). This means that the return flights from Tyumen (arrival time 12:00 PM and 11:35 PM) and from Kurgan (arrival time 3:55 PM) were also called off. The

Several flights from Moscow still haven’t arrived at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg, the airport’s interactive announcement board states. For one, Nordavia-Regional Airlines flight 5H 743 was supposed to have arrived at 2:30 AM but was delayed until 12:30 PM. In addition, two Aeroflot flights SU 735 and SU 741 from Sheremetyevo Airport have been delayed by twenty and nine hours, respectively. Foreign air carriers’ flights also get delayed: Alitalia flight AZ 3784 was to have arrived at 5:50 PM yesterday but is actually only expected at 2:00 PM today. It has been reported that the flight

OAO Khanty-Mansiysky Bank’s Board of Directors decided to close down its Yekaterinburg representation. The Board members met to make the decision on December 24, 2010.

Dexter, an airline which recently started operating flights from Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport, has had to cancel six flights already. For one, flight 9615 from Yekaterinburg to Perm was called off today; the plane was supposed to have left Koltsovo Airport at 4:55 PM. In addition, flight 9629 to Tyumen was also canceled; the plane’s original departure time was 9:10 PM. Finally, flight 9655 to Magnitogorsk (departure time 4:25 AM on December 25, 2010) was canceled as well. What is more, the air carrier called off flights 9632 Kurgan-Yekaterinburg (arrival time 3:55 PM), 9616

228 flights will be operated from Yekaterinburg during the upcoming winter holiday break, including 99 scheduled flights to eight various destinations and 129 tourist flights to fifteen destinations. Koltsovo Airport’s press service reports most flights are bound for Hurghada (thirty flights altogether), Bangkok (twenty flights), Sharm El Sheikh (nineteen flights), and Dubai (seventeen flights). Koltsovo’s timetable also contains information about nine flights to Phuket, six flights to Goa, four flights (for each destination) to Munich, Denpasar, and Barcelona, three flights (for each town)

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) and Rosnano, the state-run corporation, are going to launch their joint venture in Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk Region, on December 28, 2010. The JV is to be founded upon Sinara Pipe Plant. Rosnano Chairman of the Board Anatoly Chubais and other company representatives as well as a delegation of executives from Atomenergomash headed by the company’s General Director Vladimir Kashchenko and TMK BOD Chairman Dmitri Pumpyansky and the rest of the management are expected to attend the opening ceremony. OOO TMK-INOX, the joint venture is planning to deal in

Yekaterinburg’s international airport was allowed to host A340 and Boeing 777 aircraft and their modifications on its premises. The provision to this extents was signed by Head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Alexander Neradko recently. What is more, the airport can now let in planes of the types Fokker 50, Saab 340, Pilatus PC-12 and their modifications; these airplane types are usually used for local area flights. The permission to let in certain aircraft types was put down in Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport’s Operation & Maintenance Certificate and sent out to all the parties

The international payment system VISA rounded up yet another lottery tour recently. The lottery, commonly known as Try It-You’ll Love It, is open for participation between May 20, 2010 and December 31, 2010. OAO METCOMBANK joined in the special offer. To win one of the 3,000 prizes (3,000 RUR in cash each), VISA cardholders only need to use their card to pay for products and services. The lottery’s third tour ran between September 1, 2010 and October 31, 2010, with ten METCOMBANK customers getting 3,000 RUR onto their bank card accounts. The fourth tour is coming to its close at the moment

‘The Russian piracy is actually not as bad as it used to be, with its level going down even during the recession. However, the general situation is still alarming. We have to look up to Europe in this respect,’ Microsoft’s President for Russia Nikolai Pryanishnikov said at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. ‘This is an important point for the Sverdlovsk Region’s IT cluster that is currently under construction. It’s obvious that if the Urals-generated software gets copied illegally, no profits will result and no cluster development will follow,’ he noted.

Microsoft Corporation is ready to support the creation of an IT cluster in Sverdlovsk Region, IT & Communications Minister Irina Bogdanovitch announced at a a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. ‘We met Microsoft representatives today to speak about a number of issues. First of all, we talked about the IT cluster development and looked into the possible ways of supporting this project. This could be some financial aid offered to the startups, or software support,’ Ms Bogdanovitch said. ‘The second point under discussion was our cooperation within the framework of the Accessible Information

It was decided in the course of OAO Bank VTB’s extraordinary general meeting that OAO Bank VTB Severo-Zapad should be reorganized through a merger with VTB, the former bank’s reports say. VTB has already confirmed the merging agreement and stated that the company’s creditors should be informed of the news.

OAO Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) placed an application for the insolvency of OAO Maxi Group with the court. The application is to be considered by Moscow Arbitration Court, the company reports. On February 18, 2011, the court has to decide whether the application is well-grounded.