Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin signed a provision on the coordination of an interschool tutorial centers contest, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. There are currently fifty-three such centers in Chelyabinsk Region, over forty of which have already applied for the contest. The centers will compete in five categories: school teams, innovational IT, distance learning programs for schoolchildren and their parents, and innovational pedagogy. The application package may include not only the centers’ projects developed over the last three years but also letters of support from

Russian regions must provide the housing allotments with engineering infrastructure, Deputy Minster for Regional Development Sergey Kruglik said in the course of a press conference. The minister reported the Russian Government would subsidize the regions’ housing programs as soon as in the year 2009. At the same time, Minister for Regional Development Dmitriy Kozak announced during a videoconference a day earlier that subsidies would only be given to regions with multi-faceted area development programs. Apart from this, the regions must deal in some state-private partnership projects

The country’s stock market has been gradually going down over the last couples of months, while its indices keep falling. Some analysts believe this has to do with the pressure exerted on the market by the lack of good news from the U.S. and the plummeting of oil prices. Investors feel this state of the market can play into the hands of the country’s banking bankers: as investing in securities grows increasingly risky, banks can fill in the niche for private investments by offering a guaranteed profit on deposits. SKB-Bank’s Sales Support Director Denis Belogurov says most banks were getting

Russian metallurgical sector’s unit investment trusts keep falling: according to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of August 4-5, 2008, the share price of Troika Dialog-Metallurgy (Troika Dialog Management Company) dropped by 4.66%, that of Trubnaya Ploschad – Russian Metallurgy (Bank of Moscow Management Company) went down by 4.23%, that of BCS Metallurgy Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) decreased by 4.20%, that of Rus-Capital-Metallurgy (Rus-Capital Management Company) dropped by 4.03%, and that of Alfa Capital Metallurgy (Alfa

Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Labor and Economy reports the town of Berezovskiy (with Vyacheslav Brozovskiy elected as Mayor) has been showing a noticeable decrease in terms of its socioeconomic development. In 2006, the town was the region’s No.9 in terms of socioeconomic potential, while a year later its rating dropped to the 12th position. Experts believe this trend to go down will continue in 2008. The regional municipalities’ ratings were compiled on the basis of their socioeconomic development’s growth or decrease figures in 2007 (in comparison with the year 2006).

‘The latest hydraulic pressure testing of pipelines carried out by TGK-9 detected fifty-three different defects in them, eleven of which still haven’t been eliminated. Nevertheless, all the repairs will probably have been completed by September 15, 2008,’ TGK-9 Production Director in Sverdlovsk Region Leonid Soloviev said in the course of a press conference. The executive also reported some 7.5 kilometers of pipelines would be replaced altogether. So far, only four kilometers of pipelines were actually replaced, however.

‘There are 429 car mechanics in Yekaterinburg at the moment, yet they find themselves unable to do all the work than needs to be done. The recent monitoring of this market segment has shown that people have to wait for several days before they can have their car serviced. Besides, the number of drivers keeps going up. This year, we’ve achieved the ratio of 360 cars per each 1,000 dwellers, while the figure comes to 500 cars per each 1,000 dwellers in Europe. These figures are rather high and mean the city’s automobile services market has to meet some very strict requirements,’ says Deputy

Sverdlovsk Region’s law-enforcement and the Federal Security officers detained the accomplice of Yekaterinburg Meatpacking Plant’s raiding takeover Vyacheslav Latypov, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District Department of Internal Affairs reports. Vyacheslav Latypov is believed to actively support the partners of the notorious local entrepreneur Pavel Fedulev in their attack of Yekaterinburg Meatpacking plant that led to theft of the company’s multi-million assets. The businessman is now located in the detention ward. The plant was attacked in November 2006 when its owner Pavel Fedulev was

Academic, the large-scale residential area that RenovaStroyGroup-Akademicheskoye is currently putting up in the south-west of Yekaterinburg, may become the city’s eighth administrative district, the spokesperson for the city council reports. Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel have already discussed the idea during their joint inspection of the city’s roads under construction.

Ural State Technical University (USTU), Ural State University (USU), and the Ural branch of RAS (Russian Academy of Sciences) applied for federal status that will unite them into a single federal university. The Russian Government approved of the Ministry of Education and Science’s project regarding the introduction and performance of federal universities on June 23, 2008. In addition, the local press published the regional government’s provision on the support of the Ural Federal University project. The application will have been fully considered by the end of August or beginning of

Ural Airlines held preliminary negotiations with Boeing Corporation regarding the possibility of acquiring a new wide-body aircraft, the airline’s press officer reports. Boeing’s representatives pointed out two types of liners that would meet the carrier’s demands: these are B 767 and B 787 aircraft in various modifications. At the same time, Ural Airlines might actually choose the European Airbus as an alternative to Boeing. The carrier has already considered some offers to buy their Airbus A 330 airplane, but the signing of purchasing agreement was postponed until all the other options were

Russian Vice Premier Alexander Zhukov chaired a meeting on the implementation of the national project known as Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens in the first half of 2008. Alexander Zhukov believes the so-called sporadic housing construction is no longer a solution to the country’s housing problems. ‘Multi-faceted area development projects have the greatest potential at the moment. I think the days of sporadic housing construction are gone,’ he said. The official reports a lot more housing was put up in 2006-2007 compared with the previous years: 60.9 million square

‘Our shareholders see Metcombank as a niche business that will develop dynamically in four main directions, aspiring to become the regional leader and possibly the country-wide leader as well in each of them. Two of these direction have to do with our retail services, one of them is related to services we render to businesses, and the last one is connected with a number of certain investment projects,’ Metcombank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Rustam Mamatov said to UrBC. ‘The niche bank status presupposes working with some rather broad categories of customers with special needs. Once we

281.1 million RUR worth of excise duty payments was directed to Sverdlovsk Region’s budget in January-May 2008. This sum comprises all kinds of excise taxes, including the profits that result from those kinds of excise duty payments that are to be distributed among the Russian Federation constituent entities’ budgets, the spokesperson for the regional division of the Federal Tax Service reports. The better part of the payments is reported to come from alcohol and beer excise duty payments; their shares in the total volume of payments come to 49.9% and 49.1%, respectively.

‘Since the beginning of the summer season, the fuel fees have gone up by 30% to 50% on average, depending on the carrier one chooses,’ Palma Tours Travel Company’s Marketing Director Denis Chesnokov said to UrBC. ‘Turkey, Egypt, and the Russian coast of the Black Sea are the most popular destinations in August as usual. As a matter of fact, when the end-of-the-summer vacation season begins, trips grow a bit more expensive compared to the beginning of the season,’ he added

Bank Uralsib closed down one of its oldest Yekaterinburg-based offices: the bank’s division located in Atrium Palace Hotel (one of the city’s most prestigious business centers at 44 Kuibyshev St.) no longer operates due to the expiry of the bank’s lease agreement. The spokesperson for Atrium Palace Hotel reports the agreement is not going to be renewed, whereas the office will be offered to another company. As for Uralsib’s office, it can now be found at 28 Radischev St. This area is less close to the center of the city and is believed to be considerably less attractive for banking business,

Sverdlovsk Region’s total payment turnover (the sum of cash flow and non-cash operations) went up by 40.2% in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the first quarter of 2007. The region’s non-cash payments turnover (the sum of turnovers related to debiting and crediting customers’ accounts in the Bank of Russia and other banks, including the intra-bank settlement systems in rubles and foreign currency, and the bank of Russia’s subdivisions’ payment transactions) went up by 34.2%, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Bank of Russia reports. The increase in the region’s payment turnover can be

Russian Vice Premier Alexander Zhukov and Minister for Regional Development Dmitriy Kozak chaired a videoconference where acting Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin made his report. The meeting was devoted to the strategic problems of large-scale housing construction in Russia. Alexander Zhukov said the days of sporadic housing construction were gone and insisted on switching to multi-faceted area development where housing construction was necessarily accompanied by the introduction of modern engineering and social infrastructures. In this connection, the issue of supporting

Fewer people tend to choose Park House Trade and Entertainment Center for shopping lately; besides, a whole range of the mall’s tenants report their sales have gone down, says Park House’s Commercial Director Nadezhda Reshetnikova. The executive believes this is a seasonal trend; some experts, however, feel there may be another reason for a decrease in the number of visitors: Grossmart hypermarket that used to be hosted by Park House has recently closed down. ‘The dropping number of shoppers and the less impressive sales figures for certain kinds of products both have to do with the summer

Interfax-CEA’s analysts came up with a report on the Russian bank’s performance in the second quarter of 2008. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was once again declared the Urals’ No.1 in terms of asset volume and profitability. In addition, the bank was given the 60th position in the country-wide rating of banks’ net assets. The bank’s net assets amounted to 47.643 billion RUR in the second quarter of 2008, which exceeded the figures for the previous quarter by 25%. Besides, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was rated 58th on Russia’s Top 100 Banks list.