UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 28, 2018. A project to help children in and recently out of Yekaterinburg’s foster homes and live-in schools to learn to blog professionally is about to begin: this is part of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s Children Believe in Miracles Charity Program, the bank’s press service reports. Experienced teachers, many of whom are successful bloggers themselves, will help the aspiring blog writers to improve their knowledge of the Internet. Experts from a local children’s programming school will offer a lecture and a workshop on blogging. Children in

UrBC, Moscow, August 28, 2018. Russian nationals will start getting assigned a personal credit rating after the latest amendments on the Credit History Act come into effect next year, Rossiyskaya Gazeta refers to acting Director-General of United Credit Bureau Nikolay Myasnikov as saying. According to Myasnikov, the rating will look like a score assigned on the basis of various credit history parameters such as past-due payments, loan burdens, the number of times someone’s credit history check has been applied for, and how long a person’s credit history is. ‘The lower the score, the higher

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 28, 2018. V.A. Sorokin Customs at Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport detained a passenger traveling from Harbin to Yekaterinburg who chose the green channel despite having three large boxes with him, Koltsovo Customs’ press service reports. The unpacking of the boxes revealed large amounts of women’s shoes bundled inside. All of the shoes (210 units, 46 kg all in all) were the right-leg odd ones. The detained Chinese national explained he was flying to Moscow via Yekaterinburg in order to take part in a footwear exhibition (which is why he only took samples along).

UrBC, Moscow, August 28, 2018. The Russian Government decided to go through with a gasoline and diesel fuel price increase (+RUR 3,700 and + RUR 2,700 per 1,000 liters, respectively) starting January 1, 2019, Interfax refers to Vice Premier Dmitri Kozak as stating. ‘The decision has been made. The excise duty payments will go back to the amounts originally proposed for July 1, 2018,’ Kozak is quoted as saying. The government official insists the increase in excise duty payments will not result in a drastic increase in gas prices. ‘No prices are expected to soar. In any case, our plan is to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 28, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state-run consumer rights watchdog) inspected 35,000 kg of dairy foods in the first six months of 2018, finding 2,600 kg (7.4%) faulty, the agency’s press service reports. The problems uncovered were the same as usual: failure to comply with the normative requirements, technical regulations on the foods’ quality, and adulteration issues. Sverdlovsk Region Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology looked into 8,975 dairy foods samples in the first half of 2018 to check for microbiological parameters; 522 samples