Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin met the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Turkey to Russia Halil Akinci, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s press center reports. ‘The Turkish companies keep taking part in the construction projects in the mid-Urals, contributing to a number of large-scale projects. For one, the Turkish Korai helped put up Metro Cash & Carry. The Turkish builders will also assist in the implementation of Olympus Mall project; this mall will be put up on the highway connecting Yekaterinburg to Koltsovo Airport. The twenty-hectare

Former Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel was appointed Member of the Russian Federation Soviet of the Federation’s Upper Chamber on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reports. Eduard Rossel’s authority as the Senator of Sverdlovsk Region’s executive branch was confirmed by the majority of the Soviet votes. The former Governor is going to succeed Alexander Shkolnik in this position.

Sverdlovsk Region division of the Russian Federation Ministry of Emergencies received a phone call regarding a fire in Alatyr shopping mall in the morning of December 16, 2009. Several fire brigades headed for the mall at once. ‘The firemen found out that a short-circuit failure occurred in the building, but luckily no fire broke out,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region division of the Russian Federation Ministry of Emergencies said to UrBC. In fact, the official opening ceremony of Alatyr has been scheduled for Thursday. The mall management is going to hold a press briefing on Wednesday

The Republic of Cyprus is going to set up three consulates in Russia very soon, Chairman of Cyprus Tourism Organization Alekos Orundiotis informed the reporters. ‘The additional consulates will soon start working in Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, and Samara. It is now only the matter of some technicalities on the Russian part,’ RIA Novosti quoted Orundiotis as saying. The executive reported 180,000 Russian tourists visited the island in 2008, although the figure dropped the following year due to economic recession and the devaluation of the ruble. Orundiotis says Russia is the third largest

The 9th Ural Investment Forum devoted to the year-long recession and its developmental potential began in Chelyabinsk. The event was attended by some foreign business executives, the legislative and executive branch officials, representatives of Ural Federal District’s constituencies, heads of regional industrial enterprises, banks, financial companies, and SMEs, and mayors of Chelyabinsk Region-based towns. The forum began with the opening speech by Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin. ‘The forum has already become a traditional event and a good meeting place for networking, sharing

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting with the investors participating in the 9th Ural Investment Forum. The Governor noted that despite the economic hardships the local investors were not going to back out of their plans, even though some of the projects had to be delayed. The previous year’s forum, for example, resulted in 107 agreements (worth $14bn or 400 billion RUR) that were signed by investors, the regional government, and the local municipalities. Of these 107 projects, twenty have already been implemented successfully, while the rest are still in progress. Petr

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent an official letter to the Russian Federation Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik, asking her to change the official procedure of crop trading in the country. This year, the Russian Federation Government decided to buy out crops from a number of Russian farms, including sixty Chelyabinsk Region-based ones that had been accredited to take part in the trading process. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, only 9,000 tons of wheat crops have been sold through the Ural Stock Market since November 2, 2009 when the trading started. Even though

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Legion Commercial Bank against Uralvagonzavod Federal State Unitary Enterprise. The plaintiff demands to be paid 10 million RUR. The bank took the case to court in order to get the 10-million-ruble payment on the promissory note UVZ № 0000254 as of August 23, 2006. The plaintiff provided the court with the original of the note in the course of the preliminary hearing. Uralvagonzavod refuses to meet the creditor’s demands: the company claims in its response that the plaintiff is not, in fact, a legitimate promissory note

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court supported the ruling of Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the consumer rights watchdog). The division insisted that Uraltransbank face administrative liability. It is believed that the bank’s repair and construction agreements contained some terms that infringed upon the consumers’ legal rights, so the bank therefore violated the consumer rights protection laws. For one, when a customer takes out a loan needed for these repairs and construction, the bank makes them pay an incidental commission for the management of the loan and a monthly

President of the Republic of Byelorussia Alexander Lukashenko met Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin in the course of Chelyabinsk Region officials’ visit to Byelorussia. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Alexander Lukashenko and Petr Sumin spoke about the main directions of and the new ways of the two territories’ trade and economic cooperation. President Lukashenko drew his interlocutor’s attention to the fact that both Russia and Byelorussia were faced with the formidable challenge of establishing a new type of confederacy which was expected to improve the two

‘As far as the building at 3 Vysotskiy St. in Yekaterinburg is concerned, UKS-Invest was the customer for the project and Avtofrans was the investor. The construction was completed in the middle of 2008, but a few problems were revealed during the commissioning process. These problems still haven’t been eliminated,’ Avtofrans court representative Valeria Chicherina said to UrBC. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court conducted a hearing of the claim laid by UKS-Invest against Avtofrans and Avtoprodiks on December 14, 2009. The plaintiff demands that their deal be declared invalid and that the

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin met the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Hungary to Russia Georg Gilian. The Ambassador’s visit to the Urals had to do with the opening of the Hungarian Office in Yekaterinburg. This is a cultural and information agency designed to gradually become one of the major contributors to the two nations’ international cooperation and co-adaptation. Alexander Misharin suggested looking into a number of possible joint projects, particularly the ones that would benefit the social field. These projects are related to road construction (for

‘We are not going to stop renewing our aircraft. In 2010, we’ll keep replacing our TU154B airplanes with A320 and A321 ones,’ General Director of Ural Airlines Sergey Skuratov said in the course of a solemn opening ceremony of the company’s new office in Yekaterinburg. The ceremony that took place on December 12, 2009 was actually attended by the Russian Federation Transport Minister Igor Levitin and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin. Ural Airlines’ GD spoke about the latest data available as to the company’s passenger turnover in 2009 (the figure went up by 2% against the year

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court began the hearing of the claim laid by the Bank of Russia’s Main Division in Sverdlovsk Region (on behalf of the Central Bank of Russia as a whole) against Ural Innovational Commercial Bank (UIC Bank) and Alexei Bagaryakov, Galina Devonina, and Nadezhda Zykova. The claim is related to how the defendants applied the consequences stemming from the invalidity of some legal transactions. According to the bank’s official website, Galina Devonina owns a 19.9% shareholding in the bank’s authorized capital and Nadezhda Zykova owns a 5.1% shareholding. Alexei

‘When the management company of Alatyr mall failed the midnight opening of Media Markt’s new store in Yekaterinburg it made it clear to everyone that the company does not care about the customers at all. The management company’s negligence and lack of professionalism are quite obvious to me. I feel if anything like this is about to happen, the organizers must do their best to inform the public about the cancellation and to try and minimize their dissatisfaction by compensating the potential customers somehow,’ President of Territoria (Association of Regional Medical Insurers) Maxim

‘Of course we heard about how the opening of MediaMarkt failed at Alatyr shopping mall recently. The fact that the would-be customers who were willing to visit the store at night ended up waiting outside indicates a big marketing mistake of the management company; this is a huge blunder that surpasses all imagination. To tell the truth, if I had been one of those customers, I would definitely be anything but loyal to this mall. At any rate, I’m certainly not going to shop there now,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Tenant Union Alexander Murzin said to UrBC. The night-time opening ceremony of

Debtor businesses are increasingly trying to back out of debt repayment by going bankrupt, President of the Association of Regional Russian Banks Anatoly Aksakov announced at an interregional coordinating meeting in Yekaterinburg. The meeting was devoted to the economy’s real sector and the banking system’s developmental prospects as well as to toxic assets and bankruptcy laws. Aksakov believes the most threatening thing is that a holding sometimes tries to transfer all the debt to one of its companies while withdrawing all the assets from it at the same time. This scheme is quite popular

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by OOO Perspektiva against OOO Rosinter Restaurants Yekaterinburg regarding reclamation of property from dispossession. The plaintiff insists that the defendant return a building at 6 Sverdlov St. in Yekaterinburg back to the plaintiff. The building is owned by Perspektiva and must be returned to the proprietor along with the keys and the project documentation through a transfer act. Rosinter Restaurants Yekaterinburg maintains the plaintiff’s claims have no grounds. ‘We don’t see why they should complain because we decided

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin held a meeting with UC RUSAL BOD Chairman and Chairman of Renova Group’s Supervisory Board and BOD Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg told the Governor about how their Sverdlovsk Region-based aluminum-producing and nonferrous metal-processing enterprises were coping. The two executives also spoke about the measures taken to solve the companies’ problems. All in all, six of UC RUSAL’s enterprises, namely, Sevuralboksitruda, Bogoslovskiy smelter, Ural smelter, Ural Foil, Polevskoy cryolith plant, and SUAL-Kremniy-Ural, have found it hard to go on

OAO Pnevmostroymashina will have to pay a 700,000-ruble fine for an administrative offense related to its activity on the securities market. The decision to this extent was taken by Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service.