Alfa-Bank will soon go through a reorganization in the form of a merger with Bank Severnaya Kazna. It was decided at the BOD meeting today that the issue would be considered at Alfa-Bank’s extraordinary general meeting. The EGM has been scheduled for March 22, 2011. The shareholders will also have to discuss the ways of informing creditors and the Bank of Russia about the upcoming reorganization and to make changes in the company’s Charter. The Board of Directors decided that the bank’s ordinary shares can be bought out at 1,112 RUR apiece.

Transaero Airlines stopped selling any tickets for Egypt-bound flights, the company’s GD Olga Pleshakova told Russia 24, a TV channel. The General Director explained that tickets for Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh flights became unavailable as early as Sunday, January 30, 2011, ITAR-TASS reports. ‘From legal viewpoint, a carrier cannot refuse a passenger who shows up at a check-in counter with a ticket in their hands, since no official evacuation of Russian citizens was announced and Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh airports have been operating as usual. The number of passengers willing to go

The software piracy rates recorded in Ural Federal District are much lower than Russia’s average figures, Microsoft’s monitoring findings reveal. About 20% out of 3,229 retail outlets inspected in ninety-four Russian cities are offering their customers unlicensed software in one form or another; pirated software was also found preinstalled in 11% sales outlets. As far as Ural Federal District goes, the piracy rates dropped considerably against last fall’s monitoring results and are still lower than Russia’s average figures. 15% of the Urals-based computer stores are offering or recommending

RusRating is calling off the credit rating of BNP Paribas Vostok (A-, with Stable rating outlook), the agency’s website reports. The reason stated for calling off the rating is that the existing agreement between the agency and the bank has expired.

Yekaterinburg Customs transferred 12.9 billion RUR to the Russian budget in 2010, which was 1.1 billion RUR greater than in the year 2009. The turnover of goods within the Customs area went up by 22.2%; the freight turnover rose by 8.2%, with 11.5% more of cargo manifests processed by the customs officials. In addition, the number of agents involved in foreign economic activity increased by 5% and reached 1,814 legal entities, Ural Customs Administration’s press officer reports. Now with the lifting of border restrictions between Russia and Kazakhstan the foreign trade turnover went down by

Dexter has cancelled its flights’ arrival at Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport yet again. For one, the airline called off flight 9612 from Perm that was to have arrived at 8:20 AM. Flight 9628 from Tyumen is also delayed; the arrival time was originally set for noon. What is more, flight 9627 to Tyumen, with the original departure time set for 9:35 AM, was called off. The air carrier cancelled a few flights at the end of 2010. Koltsovo Airport then explained the flights had been called off due to lack of passengers.

CIT Finance Investment Bank is withdrawing from the Russian provinces at the moment. It has been decided by the company’s BOD that the bank’s offices will be closed throughout the first quarter of 2011 in the cities of Belgorod, Chelyabinsk, Izhevsk, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Krasnodar, Magnitogorsk, Omsk, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Taganrog, Tver, Tyumen, and Volgograd. In the end, representations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg apart, CIT Finance will run outlets in seven more cities: Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Kazan, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, and Surgut.

The American company Guess that cancelled its cooperation agreement with the Russian distributor LVB (part of JamilCo) last year is now planning to introduce its own retail stores in Russia in a speedy way. It has been reported to Vedomosti that Guess intends to launch ten stores in major shopping malls in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, and Kazan this year. The new stores will be opened by the company’s Russian representation LLC SuperStar under a variety of brands: Guess Jeans, Guess by Marciano, Guess Accessories, Guess Footwear, and Guess Kids. Guess worked with

Quite a few travel agents have decided by now that their tourists will go to Egypt in accordance with the schedule. Meanwhile, the tourists are split into three groups: the first group is going ahead with their plans; the second one won’t go and is now entitled to a full refund; the last one is trading these tours in for some other destinations like Thailand of the UAE with a bit of extra money to pay,’ Director of Inna-Tour Inna Averyanova told UrBC. In the meantime, Russia’s Ministry for Sports, Tourism and Youth Policies and Rostourism announced that selling tours to Egypt under current

Avianova won’t be operating any flights from Saint Petersburg to Yekaterinburg between March 8, 2011 and October 30, 2011, Interfax reports. It was earlier announced on the carrier’s website that Avianova gave up on the idea of making Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Airport its second HQ since the airport was unable to offer the airline the financial terms that would be appealing enough. This is why, Avianova reports, the company had to reconsider its plans relating to keeping its current flights to Saint Petersburg or introducing some new ones.

‘We are currently considering expanding our MEGA store in Yekaterinburg, but no final decisions have been made yet. This is why it’s too early just now to speak of specific deadlines or plans,’ CEO MEGA Yekaterinburg Lilia Nenasheva told UrBC. Now the company’s expansion plans were announced by Vice Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev last week. ‘They are now looking into the technical options available. The extension is supposed to be built within the next two to three years,’ the official said. MEGA currently hosts IKEA, OBI, and Auchan.

Ural Airlines started offering its customers tickets for summertime flights recently. On February 1-28, 2011, one can enjoy a discount on tickets to all the destinations in the South of Russia as well as tickets for international scheduled flights to be operated between May 1, 2011 and September 30. 2011. Those who prefer to spend their summer vacations abroad will find Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and China particularly appealing.

Selling tours to Egypt under current circumstances is a crass violation of Russian law and is liable to prosecution, Russia’s Ministry for Sports, Tourism and Youth Policies and Rostourism warn. The two authorities remind everyone that, given the current situation in Egypt, Russian tourists can definitely demand that their tour contracts be canceled or the terms of the contract be modified due to a drastic change of circumstances that were in place at the contract-signing moment (like worsened traveling conditions or other circumstances). Their claims will be based on Articles 10 and 14 of

A Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Yekaterinburg has been nearly ten hours late by now. Flight 475 was to have arrived at 6:25 AM on January 31, 2011. However, the weather conditions caused a delay, so the flight is now supposed to arrive at 3:00 PM. This means that flight 476 from Yekaterinburg to Istanbul gets delayed accordingly. The departure time is now 4:00 PM rather than 7:45 AM.