UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. 246,600 m2 worth of new housing got commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January and February 2018, which exceeded the figures for one year previously by 1.5 times, Sverdlovskstat reports. 159,200 m2 of housing got commissioned in February alone (2.4 times more than in February 2017), including 110,800 m2 of private houses (3.1 times more than last February).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region’s agribusinesses stopped buying milk from local farmers, several farm representatives told UrBC. These are mainly local enterprises that are no longer interested in cooperation. According to farmer Maxim Glazyrin, Rosselkhozkooperatsiya (Kosulino), AgriCo (Sukhoi Log), and Talitskiye Molochnye Fermy haven’t been doing any business with the farms since the start of the year. No company gave he reason the contract got annulled. ‘Rosselkhozkooperatsiya informed us on February 28 that they were backing out of the contract. This means we

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. The number of people living in Sverdlovsk Region declined by 152,300 people (-3.4%) in the last fifteen years, Sverdlovskstat reports. 4,477,552 people lived in the constituency as of January 1, 2003; as of January 1, 2018, the figure was 4,325,256. According to the statistics available, the population numbers kept going down between 2003 and 2011 and up between 2012 and 2015. A new decline began in 2016, with depopulation at 4,000 people in the year 2017 alone.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region-based civil servants’ monthly salary amounted to RUR 46,545 on average last year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 0.6%, Sverdlovskstat reports. The local legislative branch officials started earning 6.1% more (up to RUR 69,026 a month), those in the executive branch and local government officials started earning 0.4% more (up to RUR 43,626 a month), whereas public prosecution authorities and judicial branch officials started earning 1.6% more (up to RUR 62,968 a month).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. Five apartment buildings in Yekaterinburg will have to do without electric power supply temporarily due to repair jobs, Standart Management Company reports. No electric power will be available at 22 Lenin Ave from 8 AM to 5 PM on March 20-21 and at 7/2, 9, 11/1, and 11/2 Bardin St from 9 AM to 8 PM. The repair jobs are being coordinated by Yekaterinburg Grid Company.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region locals are now using their bank cards increasingly more often: they bought over RUR 382bn worth of goods and services through bank transactions last year, which is 14% more than one year previously, the Bank of Russia’s Ural Division’s press service reports. The number of transactions also rose by 15%, up to RUR 464.5m. At the same time, cardholders still tend to use ATMs for cash withdrawal less than in the previous years. In 2017, only 18.6% of card transactions were related to cash withdrawal. All in all, cardholders made 571m