Chelyabinsk Region-based enterprise Karabashmed had its shaft furnace dismantled recently. The furnaces that were in operation at one of Russia’s oldest metallurgical enterprises for over a hundred years were shut down as early as 2007, after Russian Copper Company took over the business. The large-scale renovation involved eliminating the most environmentally obsolete machinery out of the production process, which reduced the amount of harmful emissions by six times. The dismantling of the furnaces that were shut down earlier is quite symbolic, for these are the furnaces that caused the

Ural Airlines stopped using TU-154M airplanes. The last flight was operated by a plane of this type from Yamburg to Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg on Sunday, October 16, 2011, the airline’s press service reports. The company’s Director-General Sergey Skuratov said in the course of a briefing that the company stopped using TU-154M planes for economic reasons. These are the safest Russian planes, but, unfortunately, they are uneconomic. Thanks to TU-154M. we managed well during perestroika, since we could afford to operate flights abroad. These planes served as an intermediate stage of sorts

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service is going to conduct a scheduled on-site inspection of the German industrial concern Siemens’s Russian division through November 3, 2011, the FAS’s press service reports. The inspection is aimed at an all-round analysis of the company’s activity. The FAS has asked consumers to provide information on Siemens’s Russian branch violating the antimonopoly agreement by refusing to sign agreements, coordinating its distributors’ actions involving the resale of their produce, colluding with other organizations or authorities, which limits competition, setting the

A number of international experts are planning to discuss the Russian cities’ preparations for the World Cup 2018 in Yekaterinburg. The capital of the Urals will be the first city to host some Russian and foreign experts in the field of infrastructure development and sports facilities logistics on October 27-28, 2011. The experts were invited by Russia’s Transport Ministry and the Olympic Games Transportation Committee. Among the experts expected to arrive in Yekaterinburg are a professor from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, who will give a speech on the way

Sverdlovsk Region Government keeps coordinating a series of meetings with the heads of the region’s largest enterprises expected to pay some income tax to the region’s budget in 2011, the Governor’s press officer reports. Acting head of the inter-district tax inspectorate dealing with the region’s largest taxpayers Olga Shabalina says some local enterprises are now making more tax payments in general. According to Ms Shabalina, Uralmashzavod paid 10.5% more taxes in 2011 than last year, but this was due to personal income tax, as the company keeps employing more people and paying them higher