UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 6, 2011. The current divisions of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights agency) inspected fifty-two tourist companies in nine months of 2011 (compared with fifty-four a year earlier). The agency had 9,677 agreements signed by the companies with travelers examined by a board of experts to make sure the agreements comply with the existing regulations, the agency’s press service reports. Violations of the existing regulations were detected among the following companies: a sole trader named S. V. Melikyan, a sole trader named T. S. Antonova (Lady Travel Agency).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 6, 2011. Starting October 10, 2011, Avianova will no longer operate flights to or from Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport, the airport’s press service reports. ‘Avianova passengers with tickets for flights to be operated from Koltsovo International Airport are informed that, according to the air carrier’s official announcement, the airline stops operating any flights there from 2:01 AM on October 10, 2011 Yekaterinburg time,’ the airport reports.

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 6, 2011. Ural Airlines’ first scheduled international flight bound for Vienna took off in Chelyabinsk, the airline’s press service reports. The solemn launch ceremony was carried out by First Deputy Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Sergey Komyakov, Deputy Director-General of Ural Airlines Alexei Fomin, Chelyabinsk Airport Director-General Vladimir Reunov, and some representatives of the South-Ural Chamber of Commerce & Industry, tour operators, and reporters. Passengers on this flight were offered some nice gifts at the check-in. The region, the air carrier, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2011. ‘If liabilities keep increasing in value, the cost of loans will keep rising as well. The way I feel it, banks will choose a different strategy. Rather than launching a drastic rise in interest rates, they will simply set limits on their loans. So, we are going to see a dramatic drop in the lending portfolio growth dynamics due to these limitations. There will also be a small increase in the interest rates, a very careful one, since the banks have learned from their past experience that this could lead to trouble,’ says MDM Bank’s Chairman Oleg Vyugin at

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2011. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) had its premium threaded joint casings ТМК FMC inserted in the well-site of Yuzhno-Priobskoye deposit for Gazrpom Neft. The insertion operations were assisted by experts from TMK Premium Service. Inserted in the well-site of Yuzhno-Priobskoye deposit was a production casing of 276 TMK FMC casings produced by Taganrog Metallurgical Plant. This was the first time TMK Premium Service rendered such services to Gazprom Neft.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2011. VUZ-Bank recently introduced a new design for its bank cards, to be used on MasterCard Standard cards. The main theme of the new design is the fruit one. The new bank card, featuring oranges, complements the already existing plastic debit cards offered within the Life Classic range that feature nature themes like Fire, Green Leaves, and Raindrops and can be used as a universal legal tender as well as to take money out of ATMs, pay through online terminals, and make purchases over the phone and on the Internet.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2011. Sverdlovsk Region Railways (a subsidiary of Russian Railways) handled 92.7m tons of shipments in nine months of 2011, which was 3.4% more than in nine months of 2010. According to the data available, the company shipped 21.6m tons of oil (an 8.8% increase against last year), 9.5m tons of ferrous metal ore (a 7.1% increase against last year), 6m tons of non-ferrous metal ore (a 0.4% drop), 1.9m tons of cement (an increase of 10.4%), 15.7m tons of building materials (plus 6.5%), 1.1m tons of coke (an increase of 12.9%), 900,000 tons of stone coal (plus

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2011. Head of Russian Government Vladimir Putin signed a decree on setting up a non-profit organization called EXPO 2020 Application Committee. Now it was announced in early August that Yekaterinburg was chosen as the city that will compete with other world cities for the right to host the event. According to the decree adopted by the government, the organization will be in charge of preparing and coordinating all the events related to Yekaterinburg applying as a candidate for hosting the world exhibition and to submitting the application portfolio to the

Intercos-IV (a member of MMK Group) announced some personnel changes. Roman Gan was appointed the company’s CEO; he used to be employed as the plant manager at the car parts manufacturer Benteler Automotive and the midget car manufacturer Sollers Naberezhnye Chelny prior to this appointment. Former CEO and one of Intercos-IV founders Timur Shoshtayev is going to be Counselor to Mr. Gan. ‘These managerial changes fit within MMK Group’s strategy targeted at meeting the needs of the leading car manufacturers that form an auto cluster in Russia’s North-Western region. We are now reaching the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2011. ‘Russia has great intellectual resources, but its economy is 75% to 80% raw materials-based, which is not a good thing. The country needs alternative innovation projects for its economy to get upgraded,’ Bank Inteza’s BOD Chairman and Head of Inteza Sanpaolo Russian representation Antonio Fallico announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The Urals are not undergoing the troubles that are as serious as in Greece. There is no unemployment, and you can afford a little more that is absolutely necessary. The currency war does exist, and it will go on.

UrBC, Moscow, October 4, 2011. Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favor of the decision taken by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service: the agency did not allow Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company (UMMC) to take over Revda-based non-ferrous metal processing plant called RZOTzM, the Russian Agency for Legal & Court Information’s representative reports from the court room. UMMC asked the FAS to agree to the company buying 100% of Cyprus-based Shatravan Holdings Limited (the plant’s primary owner), but the agency rejected the application in October 2010, whereupon UMMC took the case to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2011. It has not been decided yet to what degree and in what ways Bank Inteza is going to join the projects involving the construction of a high-speed Moscow-Yekaterinburg railway link and of an orbital motorway around Yekaterinburg. The negotiations are currently at the budding stage, the bank’s BOD Chairman and Head of Inteza Sanpaolo Russian representation Antonio Fallico announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘There is also the financial aspect to consider, these projects are not about free resources, after all. We still make some money, even

UrBC, Moscow, October 3, 2011. The telecommunications provider MegaFon launched its Content Delivery Network that is currently unique to Russia. The network allows its users to access the global content resources, and one of its applications will consist in broadcasting the winter Sochi 2014 Olympics all over the world, MegaFon’s press service reports. The CDN unites servers located in big Russian cities into a single infrastructure, which makes it possible to speed up data download for end users, prevent holdups during data transfer and possible disconnections and data loss on busy channels,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2011. Alexander Zhugrin is no longer the director of Refinskaya Power Station (the asset of Enel OGK-5). The station will now be run by Oleg Kosmenyuk, former Director-General of Maikuben West (Kazakhmys Corporation, Kazakhstan). Oleg Kosmenyuk is forty-one years old and was born in Asbest, Sverdlovsk Region. He later studied and worked in Kazakhstan.

The Expert magazine carried a rating of Russia’s 400 largest enterprises recently. The rating is mainly aimed at identifying the largest businesses in the Russian economy and at using their performance indicators to analyze the part big business plays in the country’s economic development as well as its structure and main development trends. This is actually the oldest big business rating in Russia, compiled for the 17th time this year, and it does not have any limitations as to the nature of business. As a result, the rating comprised enterprises involved in all the major economic fields.

Bayer is going to share its new pharmaceutical technologies with Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises. The agreement to this extent was signed by the pharmaceutical concern and the region recently, member of Russia’s Soviet of the Federation and Chairman of Ural Pharmaceutical Cluster Non-Profit Partnership Supervisory Board Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. We have long been on the lookout for a strong partner to develop our pharmaceutical industry, since our problems are hard to solve on our own. Bayer was also interested in finding a business partner that would

Ural Airlines is launching a new Chelyabinsk-Vienna flight. This is actually the first scheduled international flight the air carrier is to operate from Chelyabinsk Airport. The presentation of this event will begin on the airport premises at 9 o’clock on October 5, 2011. Passengers on the very first such flight will be offered some memorable gifts. The solemn presentation ceremony will probably be attended by First Vice Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Sergey Komyakov, Chelyabinsk Airport management team, and Ural Airlines top executives.

Ural Airlines is now the official air carrier at Expotravel-2011, an international tourist fair that will take place in Yekaterinburg World Trade Center on October 7-8, 2011. The airline prepared a surprise for the participants of and the visitors to the fair: Ural Airlines will be offering special prices on flight certificates for flights from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Beijing during the fair. The latter offer should quite interest the tourists, as the certificate for Yekaterinburg-Beijing and Beijing-Yekaterinburg flights will only come to 8,000 RUR for one-way ticket,

Sverdlovsk Region Government held a meeting of the committee responsible for assisting the local businesses. The meeting was coordinated by Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin. The attendees considered the prospective tax payments to be made by a number of the Mid-Urals’ large enterprises next year. It was announced that the revenues of VIZ-Stal, one of Russia and the world’s major cold-rolled electric transformer steel manufacturers, rose considerably in the first half of the year, but the company neither paid its income tax nor intends to do so. Things look the same at

Ural Airlines is launching a ticket sale on flights from Yekaterinburg to Europe and Israel in winter 2011/12, the company’s press service reports. The cheapest round trip tickets to Prague, Rome, Barcelona, Munich, and Tel Aviv are now available for ?299 (plus the fees). Tickets can be booked between October 1 and November 15, with flights scheduled for the period of November 15 - December 18, 2011 or January 16 - February 29, 2012. The special price flights will be operated using A320 airbuses in accordance with the following timetable: Yekaterinburg-Prague: Thursdays and Sundays;