‘Mismanagement of litter and industrial waste is one of the most commonly occurring environmental offenses. There are almost no recycling facilities within the area, so land fills and cesspits around Yekaterinburg are gradually becoming a life-threatening litter circle that smothers the city. The same is true of most other towns,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Environmental Prosecutor Kirill Ershov. ‘So far, our only achievement in this field has been the launch of a separating assembly line in Pervouralsk. It took us so long to set everything up, however, that the equipment became outdated by the

Acting trustee in bankruptcy of HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) Olga Rushitskaya tried to enter the company’s office at 13 Vosmoye Marta St. on April 5, 2007, but former Noviy Grad CEO Yuri Repeta and director of Tamasi Mr. Gogia as well as Noviy Grad security guards prevented her from going in. Ms Rushitskaya had to sign a contract with the general contractor, who removed the latch from the builder’s fire exit to make it possible for Ms Rushitskaya to enter the office. The law-enforcement officers and the prosecutor who arrived at the scene stated

Sverdlovsk Region deputies adopted amendments to public road development project for 2006 – 2008 on April 5, 2007. Deputy Chairman of Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Management Policies Nikolai Krupin said the project would get 8.05 billion RUR rather than the 7 billion initially planned for 2007. Besides, the project is liable to changes throughout the year.

Sverdlovsk Region deputies approved of the legislation on public property management within the region and on privatization process in 2007 in the course of their thirty-fourth meeting. According to Deputy Chairman of Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Management Policies Nikolai Krupin, the region was going to spend more on repair and maintenance as well as on buying the shares of open joint stock companies.

The investigation conducted by the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District revealed that the local division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state natural resources watchdog) violated the civil service law. Despite the legislation and a number of presidential decrees, Rosprirodnadzor turned out not to be verifying data produced by their job applicants, which means quite a few overall conscientious workers keep violating legal norms and regulations. The case of Mr. Kiryushkin is but one instance: prior to becoming Deputy Director for Control and Coordination, he was founder and owner of

The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (aka Rosselkhoznadzor) introduced temporary limits on the supplies of poultry from a Belgium-based BE E 2001 EEG/EG on April 4, 2007 after salmonella was found in some Belgian meat, says Rosselkhoznadzor’s press officer. The Service asked the Belgian food inspection authorities to look into the causes of this meat getting infected and to take steps to make sure this does not happen again. Rosselkhoznadzor also limited import of meat from German DAZ 917 EWG since the samples of ground chicken and pork contained salmonella as well.

Sverdlovsk Region deputies approved of changes made to the regional budget for 2007 on April 5, 2007. The changes were originally proposed by Governor Eduard Rossel and consist in spending the additional revenues (13,949,993,600 RUR) on socially important programs (37%), support of municipalities (42%), extra healthcare investments (additional 2.3 million RUR), additional financing of boarding schools and orphanages (330 million RUR worth of subsidies), and 42% pay rises for civil servants (extra 2.4 billion RUR). 195 million will be used to compensate the war veterans for their communication

The 9th Ural Professional Tax Forum took place in Yekaterinburg on April 5, 2007. The forum, coordinated by Ardashev and Partners, a law firm, was devoted to new techniques in tax management, ‘scheme-finding’, and businesses that aim to reach their goals at the expense of scrupulousness. This agenda was brought about by the major challenge facing the public tax officers at the moment: having to eradicate dishonest tax schemes and to create favorable conditions for those willing to do transparent business at the same time. This means an entrepreneur’s awareness of new tax administration

‘Violations by builders were our major problem last year, which mainly has to do with large-scale construction in Yekaterinburg. Unfortunately, this has had some negative side effects, including more environmental offenses,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Environmental Prosecutor Kirill Ershov. ‘Developers would often begin building without a timely examination conducted by a committee of environmental experts, and only legalized all the papers at our demand in the course of construction. Sometimes they would ignore the need for getting consent of a number of regulatory bodies, and often cut down

Russian Railway executives arrived in Yekaterinburg on business. First Vice President Vadim Morozov is expected to meet heads of Siberian and Ural Railways to discuss performance of railways despite the ongoing repairs and reconstruction. The meeting will probably be attended by acting Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Sergey Kozyrev, Vice Presidents Georgy Kornilov, Valery Reshetnikov, and Vladimir Vorobyev, heads of departments from Moscow as well as from West Siberian, South Ural, Gorkovskaya and Kuibyshevskaya Railways. The Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in

‘Yekaterinburg gambling market is experiencing a dramatic decrease in the number of players, which largely has to do with the fact that new amendments to the gambling regulation law come into force on July 1, 2007,’ says President of Ural Gambling Business Development Association Alexei Galaguzov. ‘There were 360 amusement arcades in the city last year but only 260 at the beginning of 2007, and the number will probably have dropped down to 120 or 130 by July 1, 2007. As regards casinos, there will be no more than six of them operating in Yekaterinburg,’ he reports. ‘Quite a few gamblers are

According to the Ural Chamber of Real Estate, 53% more apartments are now offered for direct sales in Yekaterinburg. The Chamber says the number has been growing steadily over the last few months: the ratio of apartments meant for later re-sale to those meant for direct sales was 57% to 43% at the beginning of 2006, but comes to 47%/53% at the moment. The supply on the local existing homes market is expected to grow between 15% and 5% a month.

The awarding ceremony of Russian Wings 2006 (the national aviation prize) took place in Moscow on April 3, 2007. Ural Airlines (the region’s largest carrier) won in two most important categories, becoming the Carrier of the Year in terms of domestic and international flights, reports the company’s press officer. The first prize was given to Aeroflot Russian Airlines, though. Russian Wings is the only rating-based award that gives one a chance to impartially evaluate Russian carriers’ performance in a whole range of aspects, including the passenger turnover and dynamics, profitability, etc.

The Main Forestry Management Division of Sverdlovsk Region and Consumer Market Offenses Administration under Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs (namely, the Environmental Police Department) signed a cooperation agreement, says the spokesperson for the Main Forestry Management Division. The two authorities agreed to assist each other in responding to environmental offenses quickly and effectively, making sure the culprits can’t avoid being punished and always make up for the damage they have done. Given that the number of environmental police officers will have reached 500 by the

‘The criminal suit of Yuri Repeta, former CEO of Noviy Grad (the local developer) is now being handled by Internal Affairs Administration,’ says Maxim Kasatkin, Director of Economic Offenses Department of Yekaterinburg Internal Affairs Administration. ‘The additional accounting examination by experts that should reveal which financial frauds have brought the company to its knees financially has not been completed yet; the case could be placed with the court at the end of May 2007,’ Mr. Kasatkin explains. Yuri Repeta is accused of fraud; in the meantime, HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (Noviy Grad’s

‘The local wholesale fuel prices tend to go up; the average petrol price has grown 14% since February 2007, and diesel fuel has risen by 6%,’ General Director of SverdlovskNefteProduct Nikolai Kuzin said to UrBC. ‘Further increase in wholesale prices will possibly affect the retail ones, although it’s hard to say right now just how the retail prices will change,’ Mr. Kuzin said. According to Vedomosti newspaper, the rising global oil prices and the seasonal growth of domestic demand made prices rise dramatically: they soared 25% last month, which might mean having your car filled at a gas

The insulation coating of one of filtering vessels caught fire during the installation process at the recycling facility under construction next to Sverdlovsk-Sortirovochniy railway station at 4 PM yesterday. No one was hurt, says the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Railways. Several fire brigades were needed to put the fire out; the damage is being assessed at the moment. The accident occurred far from the railways, so the trains keep transiting as usual.

The public prosecution bodies of Ural Federal District completed the investigation of a case that involved abuse of power and large-scale embezzlement by two officers of justice of Sverdlovsk Region Service. The inquiry revealed that Alexei Parfenov and Alexei Belyi had for a number of years been using their position to forge fictitious financial records and to have money illegally transferred into their friends and relatives’ accounts in the local banks. They used to cash the money through ATMs and thus stole more than 1 million RUR. In the course of the investigation, they were fired,

The import figures within the Ural Customs Administration zone came to $726.5 million in January-February 2007, with over 52%, or $378.7 million, being the import from far abroad and 47.9%, or $347.8 million, being the import from the countries of the CIS, says the spokesperson for the Administration. Import grew 41.1% (in terms of prices) against a year earlier due to rising contract prices and increase in the amount of goods. The figures also went up 8.2% (compared to 2006) in terms of weight and amounted to 5.4 million tons. The share of import from far abroad comprised 2.5%, or 132,700

A group of Bavarian executives arrived in Yekaterinburg to see Academic construction project at the office of RENOVA Stroy Group on April 4, 2007. Among the German visitors are Bavarian Deputy Minister for Economics, Infrastructure, Transport, and Technology, Managing Director for Foreign Economic Relations of Munich Chamber of Commerce and Industry, CEO of Bayern International Reinhard Pfeiffer, and German Consul General in Yekaterinburg Tilo Klinner. RENOVA’s guests aim to have a look at the project and discuss the possible cooperation prospects. This new district is to appear in the