January 15, 2014. Coal shipments through Sverdlovsk Railways (a subsidiary of Russian Railways) dropped by 28.6% in 2013 and amounted to 0.8m tons. According to the company's press service, the shipments of buildings materials also declined by 11.2% (21.6m tons), those of ferrous metals decreased by 3.6% (10.9 m tons), those of scrap ferrous metals went down by 3.1% (2.7m tons), those of coke fell by 12.1% (1.2m tons), those of cement declined by 1.1% (2.3m tons), those of timber decreased by 6.7% (1.9m tons), those of chemicals and soda decreased by 7.3% (4m tons), and those of grains

January 15, 2014. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation is now completing the launch of the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS). Over 10m RUR were allocated for the implementation of this project, the holding's press service reports. 'Russian Register, a certification body, has already conducted the first certification stage of Uralvagonzavod's business management system. At this stage, it is checked whether the company is ready to have its business management system certified against a dozen 'knock-out questions' - the answers can only be

January 15, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region was given the 82nd out of 83 positions in Russia's Environmental Rating 2013 drawn up by Green Patrol, an environmental NGO. Chelyabinsk Region was the only federal constituency where Green Patrol believes the environmental situation is even worse. In late 2012, Sverdlovsk Region was given the 81st position in the rating. Over the year, its socio-environmental, industrial-environmental, and consolidated indices got worse. According to the rating, Tambov Region is doing best of all in environmental respects.

January 15, 2014. Tenants and owners of several scores of buildings and other facilities on Yekaterinbnurg's cultural heritage list dismantled a number of outdoor advertising media from these buildings after they had been ordered to do so by the authorities, Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Ministry's press service reports. For one, most of illegitimately installed billboards and banners were taken off an architectural set dating back to the fifties in Sverdlov St (Buildings 22, 34, 56, 58, and 62). The apartment blocks at 21/2 Malyshev St, G.V. Uvarov Tenement Building

January 15, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Ministry inspected 19,238 hectares worth of agricultural land in 2013, and it was detected that 1,918.1 hectares altogether were misused, the Ministry's press service reports. 863 hectares were misused in Kamensky District, 161.3 hectares were misused in Sysert District, 138 hectares were misused in Berezovsky, and 135 hectares, 18 hectares, and 678 hectares were misused in Beloyarsky, Gornouralsky, and Baikalovsky Districts, respectively. Following inspections by Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Ministry, rental contracts are now