UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 21, 2018. Nine employees of ChTPZ Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) received state awards following the Russian Federation President’s decree to this effect. The solemn awarding ceremony took place in Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast’s official residence on February 19, the Group’s press service reports. Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast Evgeny Kuivashev gave For Merit to the Fatherland Medals to Head of Pipe-Drawing Department Vyacheslav Maltsev, Head of Design Department Sergey Kashevarov, Deputy Head of Pipe-Drawing Department Lyudmila Filchenkova, Production

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 21, 2018. EVRAZ Holding and Russian Railways recently signed a new long-term agreement on rail produce supplies; the agreement came into effect on February 19, 2018 and will be valid for the next five years, the holding’s press service reports. Under the terms of this new contract, EVRAZ is to supply 3.2 million tons of goods (worth RUR 111.7bn altogether) to Russian Railways in the next five years. The plan is to go by formula pricing. EVRAZ will be responsible for supplying all the rail varieties the Russian Railways need, including special-purpose goods such

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 21, 2018. Ural Airlines are launching a new scheduled flight from Vladivostok to Sochi, with a stopover in Krasnoyarsk, on March 26. The flights will be operated on a weekly basis, the air carrier’s press service reports. Now travelers based in Siberia or the Far East will be able to get to Sochi as fast as possible: the in-flight time is now down by three hours. U6 135 (Vladivostok-Krasnoyarsk-Sochi) will be available on Mondays, U6 136 (Sochi-Krasnoyarsk-Vladivostok) on Sundays. Prices start from RUR 14,000 (Vladivostok-Krasnoyarsk), RUR 14,550

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 21, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) saved RUR 599.3m through implementing improvement proposals last year, the company’s Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. This was actually 2.5% better than in 2016, when savings reached RUR 584.5m. It was the Rolling Department that contributed to savings the most (net effect: RUR 356.3m). The company paid RUR 23.5m in premiums for successful improvement proposal implementation last year. In 2017, MMK’s expert committees considered 5,665 proposals all in all. Compared with 2016, the number of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 21, 2018. Ural Airlines are selling reduced-price tickets for Paris and Rome flights starting from March 15, 2018, the air carrier’s press service reports. Passengers can book their flights from Yekaterinburg to Paris or Rome at only RUR 11,500 (one way) or RUR 23,000 (round trip), all fees included (prices subject to change depending on the rate of exchange). The flights will be operated every Thursday and Sunday. ‘Choosing between two European capitals is no easy task, for each city is packed with world-famous landmarks, museums, fashion houses, and elite

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2018. Ural Airlines are launching their traditional summer flights sale: you can now book tickets for flights to be operated between March 1, 2018 and October 28, 2018 up to 30% cheaper, the air carrier’s press service reports. The offer holds through February 25, 2018; this is a limited offer. ‘You can book tickets for flights to be operated this summer and spring. The offer applies to very popular destinations such as the South of Russia, Europe’s seaside resorts, the picturesque locations in France and Czechia, the neat ones in Poland and Germany, the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2018. The prices of new homes in Preobrazhensky Quarter in Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District will go up on March 1. This price increase applies to studio apartments in the Comfort Class apartment buildings, RSG-Akademicheskoye reports. Preobrazhensky Quarter is quite popular with home-buyers at the moment. ‘The apartments get bought rather quickly: the first two buildings are almost fully taken, while the third one is over 50% sold out. A good selection of apartments to choose from (you can decide on either a ready home or the one currently under

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2018. Students on ChTPZ Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program joined the 6th WorldSkills Russia Championship, held in Sverdlovsk Oblast on February 17-21, 2018, the Group’s press service reports. Nineteen students are competing in twelve different categories, including Mechatronics, Industrial Robotics, Prototyping, Welding, NC Turning, and Reverse Engineering. ‘ChTPZ Group’s teams compete in this blue-collar job championships every year. Our contestants are competing in Reverse Engineering for the very first time this year. Reverse

UrBC, Moscow, February 20, 2018. Rostelecom is launching its Unified Biometric Voice & Image Recognition System on a commercial scale on July 1, 2018, Prime refers to the company Vice President for Development Alexander Ayvasov as stating. The system was designed by order of Russia’s Communications Ministry and the Central Bank of Russia. The initial version of the system was presented to the agencies on February 19. ‘Rostelecom started working on a united biometric identification system as recently as six months ago. The first working version of the system features the very technologies

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast proved one of Russia’s top ten most popular areas last year, with over 2.5 million tourists visiting the place, TourStat refers to its own research findings as indicating. 56.5m people traveled within Russia last year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 3%; foreign nationals made 19 million trips around the country in the nine months of 2017, according to the incoming tourism stats. Krasnodar Territory, Moscow Obalst, and the Republic of Crimea were the three most visited in-country tourist attractions, with 15.8m,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Ural Airlines are launching two new scheduled flights from Khabarovsk via Irkutsk to Sochi and from Vladivostok via Krasnoyarsk to Sochi, the air carrier’s press service reports. The flights will be operated starting from May 24, 2018. Fight U6 135 (Vladivovstok-Sochi, with a stopover in Krasnoyarsk) will be available evert Monday (U6 136, the Sochi-Vladivostok one will be operated on Sundays). Fight U6 160 (Khabarovsk-Sochi, with a stopover in Irkutsk) will be available on Thursdays (U6 159, the Sochi-Khabarovsk one will be operated on Wednesdays). You

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Construction sites in Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District are welcoming students looking for part-time options for the ninth time this year, RSG-Akademicheskoye’s Director-General Victor Kisselev said at a recent press conference. ‘Akademicheskiy will keep expanding for many years to come. I think students both from Yekaterinburg and other parts of Russia will keep coming to work here. This experience is truly priceless, since many of the high-profile executives and managers actually started out as members of student builder teams. This company also

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. ChTPZ Group, Russia’s Education & Science Ministry, Sverdlovsk Oblast Government, and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) signed an agreement on cooperating in the field of vocational education management at the Russian Investment Forum, the Group’s press service reports. The agreement was signed by Russia’s Education & Science Minister Olga Vassilyeva, Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast Evgeny Kuivashev, Chair of ChTPZ BOD Andrei Komarov, and ASI Director-General Svetlana Chupsheva. This agreement will serve as the basis for the development,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) and Mango Telecom are trying a pilot sale of Mango Office Virtual (Cloud) PBX in five Russian cities where the bank operates, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Mango Office is a service that helps companies with a large inflow of incoming calls always stay in touch with their customers. A service user is provided with a PBX, call analysis data, call recording, and other options. For the time being, Mango Office is only available at UBRD branches in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Perm, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for the first month of the year. 566,605 people flew with the airline in January, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 20%, the air carrier’s press service reports. The airline operated 4,234 flights on January 1-31, 2018, including 2,375 domestic flights, 949 flights to and from the CIS member sates, and 910 international flights. The number of flights operated last month was 17% larger than in January 2017. Passenger turnover amounted to 1,367,799,000 passenger-kilometers, which exceeded

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. Rosatom TVEL’s Novouralsk-based Ural Electrochemical Combine came up with a performance report on industrial safety, job safety, nuclear safety, radiation safety, and environmental protection for the year 2017, the company press service reports. ‘There were no INES scale-rated nuclear or radiation events, incidents, or emergencies at the plant last year that could have affected the population, the plant’s staff, or the environment in any way,’ the plant’s Deputy Technical Director for Nuclear, Radiation and Industrial Safety & Job Safety Evgeny

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) managed to reduce its harmful air emissions by 3.7% last year compared with the year 2016. This resulted from a whole range of environmental initiatives, the company press service reports. ‘Throughout all of last year, the plant was busy repairing its aspiration systems (including the dust- and gas-trapping units at the three ladle furnaces in the converter shop, at the final check lines at the wheel-making department, at the foundry departments, and at the slurry recycling

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 16, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and SMS Group GmbH signed an agreement for the delivery of equipment needed to reconstruct MMK’s hot-roll Mill 2500 at the company Sheet-Rolling Department 4. The equipment will get delivered onto the plant in a series of shipments throughout the next three years, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The mill reconstruction is part of MMK’s long-term strategic program to upgrade the finishing train, namely, to improve its process control system. ‘The Mill 2500 reconstruction is part of MMK’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. Sberbank Ural issued its first mortgage that was part of the state-subsidized support program for young families with children. According to RSG-Akademicheskoye, the program took off at Sberbank Ural on February 7. The very next day, a Yekaterinburg family who had their second child two weeks earlier, was issued a mortgage where the interest rate comes to 6% a year for the first three years. The new home owners will move to their two-bedroom apartment in Akademicheskiy District in the nearest future. ‘Yekaterinburg is one of Russia’s first cities to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) supplied a set of 54 E1 rails (1,650,000 kg all in all) to Greece for the first time ever. The rails will be used for Athens Underground expansion, the company press service says. Attiko Metro representatives and J&P Avax (the project developer) executives audited ZSMK in the fall and looked into the rail-testing process. They were quite satisfied with the results of the inspection as well as with the quality of produce. ‘EVRAZ Holding’s strategic goal is to become an influential