UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2020. Yekaterinburg Coordination Committee for Strategic Development met to discuss the Housing Safety Strategic Project, the town council’s press service says. Head of Yekaterinburg Council’s Housing & Utilities Department Alexander Bragin gave a talk. According to Bragin, they have been working on the Housing Safety Project since 2005, with a special emphasis in 2013. ‘Our key achievement is making the locals’ lives more comfortable through making sure the shared facilities in apartment buildings are safe,’ Bragin said. Bragin pointed to the housing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2020. Sverdlovsk Region’s courts processed 1.07m criminal, civil, and administrative lawsuits last year, which exceeded the figures for the year 2018 by 18%, President Justice at Sverdlovsk Region Court Vladimir Dmitriyev said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg today. According to Dmitriyev, the overall workload rose in 2019 against 2018, with some 411 cases per every Justice of the Peace a month and 26 cases per every district judge a month. Around 197,000 cases had to do with collection of loan debt (up 20% on the year 2018) and 120,000 cases (heard by

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2020. The price of studio apartments rose by 10% on Yekaterinburg housing market between January 2019 and January 2020 and can now be had for RUB 77,600 per m2 on average, Avito Nedvizhimost’s analysts state. This makes Yekaterinburg No. 13 in the rating of Russia’s 24 largest cities with their studio price dynamics. The price of studio apartments in newly constructed apartment buildings has been going up in nearly every large Russian city. The average studio apartment size, however, has dropped by 2%, down to 26.7 m2. As for Yekaterinburg, a typical studio

UrBC, Moscow, February 20, 2020. Starting February 19, 2020, no Chinese nationals will be allowed to enter the Russian Federation for the time being. The decree to this effect, signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, is now available on the Cabinet’s website. According to the decree, it was decided to put a temporary entry ban on the People’s Republic of China’s nationals trying to cross the Russian Federation border for work or study/as tourists/on private visits. Kommersant states the decree was signed after a COVID-19 HQ meeting ‘due to the epidemic in China getting worse and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2020. For the first time in Russia, you can now pay for your gasoline using a QR code within the Faster Payments System. The initiative has been put forth by SKB-Bank, Benzuber, and the National Payment Card System, SKB-Bank’s press service reports. ‘For the first time in Russia, FPS-enabled QR code payments were made available at filling stations in February 2020. This means the station owner who works with the FPS can cut overheads by paying less per transaction. The car owners, in their turn, can enjoy an easier and faster way of filling up their tanks,’