‘We had to make our Kurgan-based Technosila hypermarket stop operating for the time being, that is, until mid-summer. The thing is, the local market was badly affected by the recession; our shop is located in a new mall where not even 50% of available place has been taken up by tenants, so it’s just economically inexpedient for us to run an outlet there,’ the electronic goods chain’s Vice President for Strategy Leonid Tyukavkin informed UrBC.

‘Under the current circumstances, a halt is a clever thing to do; we do not leave Kurgan market and do not make anyone redundant. We just stop operating for a while,’ he added.

‘As for Yekaterinburg, we are not planning on reducing the number of shops, having layoffs, or cutting down on shopping space,’ Tyukavkin said.