‘Speaking of the Turkish tourist market, I’d say there are some full-fledged operators who book flights and make direct hotel reservations and thus come up with a ready package; also, there are some operators who don’t have any direct contact with the hotels or air carriers or don’t operate on a large enough scale to do massive booking, so these operators borrow some of the packages from other companies. For one, Vasco, a Turkish-Austrian operator with a daughter enterprise in Russia (known as Detour) borrowed our reservations for Yekaterinburg-Antalya and Chelyabinsk-Antalya flights but

LSR Group’s Board of Directors approved of the company’s two recent transactions targeted at geographical diversification and building up their position on Yekaterinburg’s construction and building materials market, the Group’s official website reports. One transaction involved acquiring 100% of Uralscheben’s shares. The sum of the transaction has remained unknown. Uralscheben is reported to be one of Yekaterinburg’s major macadam market players that supplied 5% of all the macadam used by Yekaterinburg’s builders last year. Uralscheben owns 100% of Rezhevskoy DCZ and Gagarskiy granite mine’s

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) intends to inspect a number of regional enterprises, their press officer reports. The agency is going to examine the premises and papers of Sinara Pipe Plant, Severskiy Pipe Plant (members of Pipe Metallurgical Company), Volchanskiy Ugol, and Severouralskiy brewery. In addition, Sverdlovsk current transformer plant, Polevskoy machine-building plant, Serov mechanical plant, Serov metallurgical plant, Gazpromtransgaz Yugorsk, Pervouralskaya poultry plant, and Pervouralsk New Pipe

Kommersant-Tema came up with the results of a research done on Russia’s factoring market opportunities in 2007. The magazine’s analysts report the share of provincial banks keeps going up. Last year, for instance, this share came to 46.4% of the market against 43.3% in 2006. The magazine also rated Russian companies that did best in terms of factoring earnings in 2007. SKB-Bank, for one, has received over 120 million RUR by January 1, 2008, which was 828% better than a year earlier and thus secured the bank the 11th best position among all Russian factoring market players. According to Expert

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development is going to run a special offer for its customers on July 4-14, 2008. Customers can take advantage of the special discount and get a business development loan with the annual interest rate that is 1% lower than usual. In order to use this offer, one has to apply for a loan quickly in any of the bank’s offices where the SME Lending Program is available. These are the terms of the offer, known as ‘SME Lending Program’s Birthday’: 1. The offer is available between July 4, 2008 and July 14, 2008 in all of the bank’s offices where the SME Lending

Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee keeps getting complaints regarding Noviy Grad, the local developer. ‘In fact, we get claims related to nearly all the local builders, including Noviy Grad, a number of companies whose names include the word Mayak, and many others,’ says the Committee’s Chairman Andrei Artemiev. Andrei Artemiev reports there is a whole range of financial pyramids on the city’s housing market into the bargain. ‘Such builders put up dwellings for one group of customers using the money invested by some other customers; as a result, the number of the so-called deceived

An official representative of American University in Cairo did not support the claim made by Viktor V. Solkin, a prominent Russian Egyptologist, head of MAAT (the Association for Ancient Egypt Studies), that he had defended his PhD in the History of Egypt there. In June 2008, Viktor Solkin took part in The School for Scandal, a popular NTV show hosted by Tatiana Tolstaya and Avdotya Smirnova. He said he decided not to defend his thesis in Russia because of some unfavorable reviews and comments and went through with the procedure at American University in Cairo. This claim was met with a bit

An official representative of American University in Cairo did not support the claim made by Viktor V. Solkin, a prominent Russian Egyptologist, that he had defended his PhD in the History of Egypt there. In June 2008, Viktor Solkin took part in The School for Scandal, a popular NTV show hosted by Tatiana Tolstaya and Avdotya Smirnova. He said he decided not to defend his thesis in Russia because of some unfavorable reviews and comments and went through with the procedure at American University in Cairo. This claim was met with a bit of disbelief by a number of Russian Egyptologists, and

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubersnkiy Bank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 35.37% (from 60.002 million RUR to 38.777 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

SKB-Bank’s office started operating in Krasnodar’s Zapadniy district and can now be found at 141 Kirov St/327/3 Kalinin St. The office is located in downtown, next to a big square and Academic drama theater. The bank’s outlet welcomes small and medium enterprises’ representatives from 8.30 AM to 5.30 PM on weekdays. SKB-Bank runs over eighty offices in twenty Russian regions at the moment and is planning to introduce new offices in Khabarovsk, Yakutsk, Kazan, Izhevsk, Yugorsk, and Tarko-Sale.

Okami-Vostok, one of Yekaterinburg’s car centers, has been unable to fix the problem one of the cars they’d sold had for ten days now, the owner of the car reports. The unfortunate customer was told by the center’s experts that the part needed to fix the faulty air conditioner had been sent off Taganrog car factory and was located in Moscow for the time being. The part would take another ten days to arrive in Yekaterinburg. Okami-Vostok initially told the customer that the delivery of the car part could take between 14 and 45 days within the day of application.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year went down by 17.33% (from 198.943 million RUR to 164.454 million RUR) in January-May 2008.