December 11, 2012. The solemn unveiling ceremony of a memorial dedicated to the prominent creator of tanks and Uralvagonzavod’s Chief Designer in the 50s and the 60s, Major-General Engineer Leonid Kartsev took place in Skomovo, Ivanovo Region. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation (UVZ) helped to build and install the memorial, which is a sample of the T-62 tank – one of Kartsev’s most important creations, UVZ press service reports. The solemn opening ceremony next to Kartsev’s home was attended by Governor of Ivanovo Region Mikhail Men, head of the Russian Defense Ministry

December 11, 2012. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant Palace of Culture’s stage was used as the main venue for ChTPZ Group’s 10th Children’s Festival Snezhnost on December 8-10, 2012. Moscow-based theater Satirikon was the first to present its story called ‘Once upon a time in a village’. The theater actually took its first night to the Urals to present the play at the festival. The event’s honorary guest and the theater’s head Konstantin Raikin said that he thought very highly of the company’s initiative to hold a charity New Year event for the children living in Pervouralsk, Chelyabinsk, and

December 11, 2012. Thanks to the joint efforts of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) security staff and officers from the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry’s Saint Petersburg division, illegal sales of counterfeited items bearing ChTZ logo were detected and stopped, the press service of Uralvagonzavod Corporation reports. Criminal action was taken against the Chelyabinsk-based firms that dealt in the sales of these items. The accused sold some bulldozers that had gone through a garage overhaul as if they were new ChTZ ones and actually sold one and the same set of bulldozers to a number of

December 11, 2012. In January-December 2012, Ural Customs Administration collected 173m RUR worth of fines and imposed 161m RUR worth of fines. Following their 321 inspections, 192 administrative lawsuits and 3 criminal lawsuits were instituted, the Administration’s press service reports. According to the files transferred to the law-enforcement and surveillance authorities, 744,000 RUR more were assessed additionally, and 730 units of counterfeit items were confiscated.

December 11, 2012. Yekaterinburg proved No.1 city among those with population over 1m for doing business. This year, Yekaterinburg was ahead of 18 cities with population over 1m, including Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, and Chelyabinsk. Sverdlovsk Region was in the middle of a similar rating for Russian Federation constituencies and ahead of both Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The index of how easy it is to do business in the Russian constituencies was compiled by Opora Rossiyi, the All-Russian SME organization. The rating was based on the findings of the annual research on the conditions and