UrBC, Moscow, October 31, 2018. Russia’s Finance Ministry won’t have the ‘luxury tax’ adjusted after all, Minister Anton Siluanov said on Channel 1 Pozner Show this week. ‘They often say we should tax the wealthier people more. As things are, we have done that already: owners now pay higher property tax on luxury apartments and condos, automobiles, yachts, and so on,’ Siluanov said. According to Siluanov, a progressive tax system ‘has its plus and minus sides.’ ‘We understand the well-off to be clever enough to find a way around the progressive tax; for one thing, these people may choose to

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 31, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is now among the winners of the All-Russian Competitive Purchases Leader Contest as the Best Business Process Upgrade Project, MMK’s PR Department reports. ‘188 Russian companies active in every sector of the national economy took part in the contest. The winners got selected by a community board of seventy independent experts. This year, MMK presented its project on Supply Chain Transformation With External Experts’ Help. This is the largest-scale upgrades project implemented by the company in the purchasing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 31, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s team was one of the top three finalists at WorldSkills Hi Tech Championship in terms of the number of prize medals: the team won two gold ones, five silver ones, and three bronze ones. Team players from EVRAZ Holdings West Siberian Metallurgical Plant (ZSMK) won prizes in eight categories out of twelve, the Holding’s PR Department reports. ‘The junior team also did very well. Contestants from Novokuznetsk-based Meridian Children’s Tech Arts Center Grigory Chekushin and Makar Mukhin both won silver; seventh-grade students of Nizhniy Tagil

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 31, 2018. ChelPipe Group’s team won ten medals in the 5th All-Russian WorldSkills Hi Tech Blue-Collar Job Championship, the Group’s press service reports. Senior Expert Artem Rogozinnikov and electric gas welder Maxim Koryakin won gold in both the national and international rounds of the competition in Industrial Robotics and Reverse Engineering, respectively. Silver in Industrial Mechanics & Assembly went to Nikolay Permin. ChelPipe Group’s employees also won five bronze medals in Welding Technologies, Industrial Automation, and Composite Technologies. ‘The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 31, 2018. Rosatom Corporation presented its new industrial 3D printer at a recent exhibition in Moscow; the printer is expected to get manufactured in Rosatom’s plant in Novouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department reports. Representatives of Rosatom Corporation, Russia’s Industry & Trade Ministry, and the Urals’ leading industrial enterprises all contributed to the presentation at the Additive Technologies Scientific & Production Consortium session. First Deputy Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexei Orlov commented on the importance of

UrBC, Moscow, October 30, 2018. The share of Russians who cannot afford to buy as many clothes as they would like, travel as much as they would like, or spend as much money on entertainment as they would like rose from 17% in 2014 to 25% in 2018, Romir Holding’s press service refers to the company’s own research findings as indicating. Only 16% of survey respondents in the 60+ age group admitted giving up on new clothes and travel was their way of dealing with rising prices, compared with 33% of respondents in the under-24 age group. Overall, about 29% of respondents with medium-sized incomes

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 30, 2018. A time capsule placed by employees of Magnitogorsk Metal Goods/Metallurgical Plant (MMK METIZ) fifty years ago got unearthed in Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ press service reports. The time capsule contained a message from Komsomol members who worked at Magnitogorsk Metal Goods/Metallurgical Plant at the time, addressed to the future generations. Komsomol got established exactly fifty years prior to 1968, and 103 people got invited to the official unearthing ceremony in celebration of the organization’s 100th anniversary over the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 30, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new flight from Moscow to Salzburg, Austria. Domodedovo-Salzburg-Domodedovo flights will be operated every Saturday between December 29, 2018 and March 30, 2019, the air carrier’s press service reports. There will be two extra flights during New Year break: U6 3537/3538 on Wednesday, January 2, 2019 and Wednesday, January 9, 2019. Prices start from €78 (RUR 5,230) for Promo tickets (one way); from €90 (RUR 6,815) for Economy tickets (one way, one piece of luggage and one set of skis included); from €168 (RUR 12,706) for

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 30, 2018. Magnitogorsk Council coordinated yet another contest on this year’s best furnished business premises. MMK Group’s member enterprises made it to the list of finalists as usual, the Group’s press service reports. The results of this year’s competition were announced at the town council meeting by Head of Magnitogorsk Capital Construction & Urban Improvements Alexander Pechkarev. ‘This is the 11th time we are holding this contest now. The contestants submitted their leaflets on how their companies’ management and staff approach and contribute to urban

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 30, 2018. GR Director at ChelPipe Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) Alexander Khanin received a thank-you letter from Pervouralsk Department of Education this week. The letter, signed by the department’s head Yelena Yugfeld, states that Alexander Khanin has been awarded for his long-standing, proactive cooperation with and contribution to the town’s education system. ‘Our concerted efforts to raise and educate the younger generations are invaluable to our home town’s development and prosperity,’ the letter says. Now Commander-in-Chief of the Russian

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 29, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Coal Company recently designed a virtual tour of the mining companies’ filtering facilities, the holding’s press service reports. The up-to-date 3D program won the gold medal at the 2nd Siberian Environmental Forum. The virtual tour gives the user a full picture of every single stage at which mining water gets filtered. The 360-degree videos of Yerunakovskaya 8 Mine’s and Uskovskaya Mine’s advanced filtering facilities allow a VR headset user to visit all the locations, learn about the tech processes, and get acquainted with

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 29, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is currently Russia’s only ferrous metallurgical enterprise to make it to the rating of top ten environmentally aware and proactive companies; the rating is carried by the TV channel Zhivaya Planeta and the MOMRI every six months, MMK’s press service reports. Based on its environmental initiatives in the first half of 2018, MMK went two positions up in the rating and was listed as the country’s seventh most environmentally aware business. There are 33 oil and gas companies and metallurgical enterprises in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 29, 2018. 18 employees of ChelPipe Group’s pipe-manufacturing and oilfield service divisions are competing in the 5th All-Russian WorldSkills Hi Tech blue-collar job championship this year, the company press service reports. Now the 5th All-Russian WorldSkills Hi Tech Championship is taking place in Yekaterinburg EXPO on October 24-28, 2018. The Group’s ‘white-coated metallurgists’ are contesting in eleven different categories, including Mechatronics, Industrial Robotics, Reverse Engineering, and Welding. ‘ChelPipe Group is a regular participant in WorldSkills

UrBC, Moscow, October 29, 2018. According to the Russian banks’ reports as of October 1, 2018, Russian nationals kept withdrawing their dollar savings ($662m) as well as their ruble savings (RU 141bn) from Russian banks throughout September. Most of the money fled from the banks mentioned in the U.S. anti-Russia package that included a proposal to ban foreign currency transactions, Kommersant reports. Sberbank’s foreign currency deposits shrank by over $901m in the course of last month; those of VTB dropped by $95m; those of Sovcombank by $55m. Some of these funds got transferred to Russian

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 29, 2018. You can now use MegaFon SIM cards to test the quality of drinking water in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk: the smart solutions have been applied within the telemetric quality control system of local water vending machines, the company press service reports. Now according to the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, over 60% of Russians are not really curious about the quality of potable water, and 84% of their respondents drink water from the tap. In Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, locals boil, filter, or desilt it first. Even these precautions might

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing more Yekaterinburg-Tbilisi flights. According to the air carrier’s press service, four flights a week will get operated from Yekaterinburg to Georgia’s capital starting November 4, 2018. The flights will be available every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Prices start from €54 (RUR 4,041*) for a one-way ticket. The flight is three hours and twenty minutes long. ‘Wintertime Georgia is a great place to go to both for mountain skiers and for those who love long walks along old streets. It makes a lot of sense to start

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 26, 2018. The 25th EuroBLECH 2018 Fair is taking place in Hannover, Germany; Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is contributing to this major event in the sheet metal treatment technology sector. ‘MMK takes part in EuroBLECH every other year, which is how often the fair gets held. The company stand features the plant’s wide product range and tech potential in the sheet metal making sector. MMK is currently No.1 on the respective Russian market,’ says the plant’s Information & PR Department. The highly durable and wear-resistant MAGSTRONG. steels are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2018. The Bank of Russia annulled UralTransBank’s license this week, the former’s website states. ‘This is to announce that the Bank of Russia annuls the banking license of Yekaterinburg-based PAO UralTransBank (Identification Number 812) starting October 25, 2018 (Bank of Russia’s Decree dated October 25, 2018/No. OD 2785),’ the website says. Now UralTransBank closed down more than a third of its retail branches in the last eight months; besides, the bank was on the Central Bank of Russia’s non-compliers list for eighteen months. Valeriy Zavodov, a business

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2018. Sverdlovsk State Academic Philharmonic canceled the closed meeting that was supposed to have covered a discussion on a new concert hall, political activist Dmitri Moskvin announced via his Facebook account. The news of the planned meeting transpired last week; it turned out only the so-called members of the ‘Friends of The Philharmonic League’ could sign up for it; the Philharmonic’s website explained this had to do with the limited number of people their auditorium could fit. ‘We do not wish to engage in the ‘open hearings’ format that we are being

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) won the 5th All-Russian Motivation Awards 2018 Contest in Innovations. The bank presented its General Meeting 2018/LifeUB: The Talk Show Project, the bank’s press service reports. The contest aims to bring into the limelight the best practices used for personnel motivation and to support the development of advanced personnel management technologies. Only the most progressive and out-of-the-ordinary projects on intangible employe incentives that were implemented by different companies competed in