UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2016. The city’s first well-heated bus stop was put up in Yekaterinburg recently. The stop (Kamenny Ruchei) is located in Shcherbakov St, the city council reports. Deputy Mayor for Urban Development, Transport, & Environment Evgeniy Lipovitch went to look at the bus stop and to test the heat sensors in action. The bus stop comprises a back and two side walls to protect passengers against the wind, three columns covered in protective steel sheets, a roof with in-built LED lighting, an infrared heater benches, and trash bins. The structure is heated with an

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2016. 5,834 crimes were committed within Ural Federal District’s transport facilities and infrastructure last year, the local division of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s Transport Department reports. 4,500 crimes, 25% of which were classed as grave, got investigated; the whereabouts of 3,000 people hiding from justice were found out. An impressive share of mercenary crimes (around 33%) were related to embezzlement/stealing. 1,863 counts of theft (including 500 counts of stealing private property, 348 counts of stealing cargo, and 584 counts of stealing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s building materials manufacturers’ production output decreased by 10% last year, director of Sverdlovsk Building Industry Union Yuri Chumerin told UrBC. ‘Our plants are only working to 60% to 70% of their capacity, almost at the break-even point. The amount of orders to meet declined by around 10%. The thing is, most of these actually only produce things by customers’ orders, and local developers have been putting up less and less lately. Even though new apartment blocks get commissioned as usual, fewer new buildings get planned, so

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2015. The number of claims locals place with Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities rose by 14.5% last year; every one in five such claims was found to be well grounded, the authorities report. ‘Over 60,000 claims were processed last year; both the overall number of claims and that of resolved claims went up by 8%, as did the number of prosecution proceedings resulting from sustained claims. More than 30,000 people got professional legal advice through personal appointments with the public prosecution authorities officials. Also, the number of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 25, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation bought out production premises of a former railway depot in Volchansk in order to use them as an industrial railcar production department for its Volchansky Mechanical Plant. The building used to belong to Volchansky Section, where dump-cars got repaired. The company press service reports one advantage of buying the site lies in separating the plant’s production lines. Volchansky Mechanical Plant’s current premises will still be used for making grain containers, timber railcars, and tank platforms, while the former railcar

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. The share of dollar/euro deposits at Sverdlovsk Region’s banks dropped from 19,7% down to 18% throughout last year, Deputy Chair of Ural Banking Union Evgeniy Bolotin said at a press conference. ‘This means people are losing their trust in foreign currency and have confidence in the ruble. Also, the foreign travel market shrank, so many former travelers no longer need to buy dollars or euros for their trips,’ Bolotin said. According to Bolotin, the overall share of foreign currency deposits in Russia on the whole declined from 30.7% down to 28.9% in 2015.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s city councils were unable to pay their registered unemployed their allowance on time this month, Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department confirmed to UrBC. ‘The payments really were delayed, as the federal funds did not get transferred here in time. The money came yesterday, so the problem will be solved in the very near future. These temporary setbacks occurred in virtually every city and town in the constituency,’ the Department’s press secretary Olga Rudeva said. As of January 20, there are 33,447 people registered at

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. It is reported preliminarily that housing sales decreased by 25% to 27% in Sverdlovsk Region last year, the constituency’s Construction & Infrastructure Development Minister Sergei Bidonko said at a press conference. ‘As the customers’ paying capacity deteriorated, sales dropped. Given last year’s economic circumstances, the initial decline was estimated at 40% but turned out to be less than this by the end of the year,’ he said. In the meantime, housing prices keep going down: Bidonko said in some cased the decrease reached 12% to 17%. Still, this

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. 2,180 people working for Sverdlovsk Region-based employers will lose their jobs within the next three months, the constituency’s Legislative Assembly deputy Andrei Alshevskikh refers to the local employment centers as stating. A 15-people school cafeteria in Verkhnyaya Salda is closing down; people are being made redundant at Nizhniy Tagil Railcar Depot (356 workers have already been laid off and 152 will have to follow suit); OOO Aist, registered at the foot of Mount Dolgaya in Nizhniy Tagil, is letting 94 people go. A 16-people children’s club in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. A new cast-cooling unit underwent start-up and commissioning procedures and was launched at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s Foundry Department 1 recently. The unit relies on the new technology where the castings and the sand blend are shaken out and cooled simultaneously. The company press service reports the unit was made right at the plant’s production departments and will be used for cooling the casting stuffs that need to be filtered from sand. ‘This equipment took six months to make. We relied on the experience of using the previous make

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s state construction surveillance authorities inspected 258 buildings under (re)construction and detected 1,562 instances of non-compliance with the existing urban development legislation, their press service reports. In 57% of cases (namely, 891 cases), problems consisted in violating the obligatory technical requirements and project documentation provisos; in 23% of cases (366), developers failed to comply with the safety regulations or process organization requirements; in 18% of cases (281), companies failed to ensure construction

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Rental homes grew, on average, 11% cheaper in the Urals last year, N1. RU reports after looking at over 80,000 housing ads for places in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen. ‘Rental prices declined the most in Perm and remained nearly the same as in the previous year in Chelyabinsk. Yekaterinburg market experienced the third biggest price decrease,’ the company reports. The average monthly rent amount dropped by 11% and came to 18,600 RUR in Yekaterinburg (against 21,000 RUR in 2014). This was also the case in most large Ural cities. Prices

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2106. Pipe Metallurgical Company’s (TMK) Russian division now also comprises a new enterprise cluster TMK-Central Asia (Astana-based TMK-Kazakhstan and Uralsk-based TMK-Kaztrubprom), TMK PR Department reports. The introduction of a new cluster will mean TMK could use its potential on Kazakhstan’s and the CIS pipe market more efficiently. TMK-Central Asia will be run by the company’s Business Development Director in the Republic of Kazakhstan Vladimir Kolesnikov, who came into office on January 18, 2016. Kolesnikov has nineteen years’ experience on the Central

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant/PNTZ will pay a compensation to the family of their strapper Alexander Popov, who had a production accident and later passed away in hospital. The company press service reports their Collective Agreement ensures an incidental allowance of 100,000 RUR for every family member (children, wife, and mother) and 5,000 RUR a year for every child under 18 until they come of age. ‘The company management also decided to pay the family the deceased worker’s average monthly wage until the youngest child is eighteen. Popov’s co-workers are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Russian Maritime Register recently issued safety acceptance certificates for Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s KTsKh.PKM-25/0.4 composite body containers. According to the company press service, this means the tank containers can now be used for freight forwarding by rail, car, and sea. The tank container is meant for transportation and storage of a wide range of chemicals; the body made of composite materials weighs 4,500 kg (which is lighter than the earlier versions) and has an increased freight capacity of 31,500 kg. Besides, these composite materials

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. 2,467 people living in Sverdlovsk Region were officially warned that their driver’s licenses could get annulled if they have more than 10,000 RUR worth of debts, the local division of Russia’s Federal Service of Court Officers reports. ‘First court warrants limiting their driving rights have already been given to twenty-two debtors; fourteen of them owe money in terms of unpaid child support (2.256m RUR altogether) and eight have failed to pay damages for the infliction of emotional distress (755,000 RUR altogether). The amendments to the Federal

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Over 1,600 illegal immigrants got deported by Sverdlovsk Region’s court officers last year; this figure exceeds that for a year earlier by 36%. It is reported most of the deported subjects come from Tajikistan (648 people), Uzbekistan (595 people), and Kyrgyzstan (309 people); the rest come from Azerbaijan (24 people), Armenia (15 people), China (25 people), and Kazakhstan (11 people) and Moldavia, Georgia, Vietnam, Turkey, Byelorussia, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Serbia, and Ukraine. ‘There were no emergencies in the process of transferring the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Up to 30% of electric power supplied to Sverdlovsk Region-based end users do not meet the existing quality requirements, Head of Rosstandart’s local division Svetlana Mikheyeva announced at a press conference. Under the current GOST 13109-97 standard, the electric power supply must stay within certain frequency and voltage range as well as within given (un)sinusoidality and voltage (un)balance parameters and show control over its voltage impulse and overload. ‘End users complain about the poor quality electric power supply a lot, while Sverdlovsk Region

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s businesses and organizations owed their employees 8.378m RUR in delayed wages and salaries as of January 1, 2016, Sverdlovskstat reports. This was 19.9% more than one month earlier. Four companies are reported to provide these data to Sverdlovskstat all in all.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. The TV channel Techno24 recently aired another episode of its Polygon Show on Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s upgraded T 72B3 tanks. The company press service reports the shooting took place at Omsktransmash production premises, at a shooting range in Svetly, and at the corporation’s own testing site. ‘While in Omsk, the camera crew had time to learn about the upgrade process in all the detail and even to contribute to it. People at the plant were eager to answer their questions, share their experience, and help the show presenter master the jobs of a