UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2020. EVRAZ Holding launched a new, portable gas-drainage unit at Alardinskaya Mine, the company’s PR Department reports. The new appliance is meant to reduce the gas emissions coming from the rock mass and to make underground mining safer. The unit can drain up to 400 m3 of gas from under the ground every minute. ‘This is the third gas-drainage facility installed at the mine. The unit is fitted with an up-to-date filtering system. Cyclone is used to filter the methane-air mixture from excess moisture, coal dust, and other contaminating particles. This ensures

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2020. 32,242 car loans got issued in Sverdlovsk Region last year, which only exceeds the figures for one year earlier (31,884 loans) by 1.1%, the National Credit History Bureau reports. According to the Bureau, 947,300 car loans got issued in Russia last year overall, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier (846,800 loans) by 11.9%. Also, 2019 was the year when the number of automobiles sold on credit reached the six-year high. The borrowing parties’ personal credit score averaged at 712 points. ‘State-funded programs have been supporting the national

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 29, 2020. 1,168,400,000 kg of hot-rolled metal goods came from heavy-plate Mill 5000 at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) last year; this has been the best year’s output figure so far, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. ‘The last time an output record was broken was back in 2010, when the mill produced 1,160,500,000 kg of rolled goods. MMK’s heavy-plate Mill 5000 got launched in 2009, with President Vladimir Putin attending the opening ceremony and commenting very appreciatively on one of MMK’s largest post-Soviet era investment projects. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2020. OOO FORES’s Asbest branch installed a new, 100-meter-long fence next to Yablonka Gardeners’ Cooperative. The fence is made from special noise-insulating panels and thus ensures the necessary sound damping. The fence is 104 meters long and 4 meters high. The company spent RUB 3.4m to get the fence designed, purchase the building materials, and have the structure assembled, FORES’s press service informed UrBC. ‘We had the noise levels tested last year, when the plant was fully idle at one time. It turned out this noise level was only 5 dB lower than usual.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2020. Head of the Russian Tourist Industry Union’s Ural division and Director at Ural Tourism Association Mikhail Maltsev said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg that no packaged trips to China were sold to Russian tourists at the moment. ‘Rostourism issued a recommendation last Friday, suggesting all the market players put their sales of trips to China on hold. In practical terms, this means travel agents wishing to stay on the market and to play it legal will have to stop selling packaged tours to China. As a matter of fact, all the business followed the