June 26, 2014. The US dollar exchange rate dropped to below 34 RUR per dollar and stood at 33.65 RUR last Monday. The same minimum was observed in mid-January 2014, Bank Koltso Urala reports. According to the head of the bank’s Currency Transactions Deparment Igor Nesterovitch, the ruble mainly grew stronger due to the positive news inflow (ceasefire in Ukraine’s South East, Europe’s ‘mild’ sanctions towards Russia, and recalled permission for the Russian troops to enter Ukraine) and the current fiscal period which stimulates demand for rubles. Nesterovitch feels, nevertheless, that the ruble

June 26, 2014. Visitors to and participants of the world computer programming championship ACM-ICPC 2014 that is currently being held in Yekaterinburg were attracted by an enormous chess board that was installed in the city’s main recreation area as part of the Unique Entertainment Area Project,’ the city council’s press service says. Visitors to and participants of ACM-ICPC 2014 can play chess from 10 AM to 7 PM, and everyone can have a photo of them standing next to the chess pieces taken. ‘I like this idea, and I like playing chess as well. This could become a permanent fixture, although

June 26, 2014. Visitors to and participants of the world computer programming championship ACM-ICPC 2014 had a very high opinion of how the event was organized in Yekaterinburg, Director of Luxembourg-based Artec Group Leonid Volkov told UrBC. ‘We were quite favorably impressed: the championship is very well organized, the competition was very dynamic, and, as far as I can tell, all the visitors, including those from abroad, are having a very good time. All the people I’ve spoken to – long-time contestants and team coaches from both the States and Russian cities such as Samara and Saint

June 26, 2014. The graduates of ChTPZ Group’s corporate project called the Future of White Metallurgy who were all serving their army term in the village of Gorny Shchit, Sverdlovsk Region, were discharged from the army today. 21 people served their term all in all, the company’s press service says. This unique opportunity for all the graduates of one vocational school to serve in one and the same regiment became possible thanks to efficient cooperation between the army, the business community, and the local authorities. This was a PPP where ChTPZ Group, Sverdlovsk Region Government, and

June 26, 2014. The actual time it takes to get a small or a medium enterprise registered in Sverdlovsk Region is 18 days, Sverdlovsk Region Prime Minister’s press secretary says. The local authorities keep working on reducing the registration time. An agreement has already been signed with the Social Insurance Fund relating to providing the registration information via a multi-purpose center. This means the applicant doesn’t need to wait for a notification in the mail and get these data more or less at the same time as the registration certificate, that is, when the agreement is signed with