August 14, 2013. According to the data provided by the local division of the Federal State Statistics Service, the average pay of a consumer industry worker in Sverdlovsk Region came to 28,388 RUR in June 2013, which is 11.9% more than in June 2012, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Economics Ministry reports. In January-June 2013, the average pay of a Sverdlovsk Region-based consumer industry worker was 26,753.6 RUR (+10.8% on January-June 2012); as for the country average, the figure was 28,828 RUR (+13.3%). In the first half of 2013, the average month's pay went up on the

August 14, 2013. The first stage of the start-up and commissioning jobs at the ultra-filtering water treatment department is compete at the Western filtering station of Yekaterinburg Water Supply & Waste Water Treatment Plant. On Wednesday, August 14, Mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Yakob and his deputy for housing and public utilities issues Alexei Kozhemyako are going to take part in the launch of this preparatory stage of the start-up and commissioning process. Yekaterinburg Water Supply & Waste Water Treatment Plant's press service says that Yekaterinburg really needs the

August 14, 2013. 201,000 foreign workers have been registered in Sverdlovsk Region since the beginning of the year, with about 150,000 migrants arriving in the area through Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg, Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Migration Service Vadim Lysakov said at a press conference. 'Out of the total number of foreign residents who arrived here this year, some 43,000 came to work. Most of the foreign labour still comes from the former Soviet republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and some others. As for those countries whose residents need

August 14, 2013. An open-to-all tourist youth conference called Azovka 2013 was held at Seversky Pipe Plant (a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company). This conference was rejuvenated after a big break 13 years ago and has been held in Azov Mountain for the eighth time this year. This is an all-city event attended by teams from companies and organizations of Polevskoy. This year, there was a record-setting number of participants: 23 teams and 500 people. The teams competed in several kinds of sports: fencing, weight lifting, air rifle shooting, darts, and tug-of-war. Also, an assault course was

August 14, 2013. 1.87m RUR worth of paid administrative fines was paid to Yekaterinburg budget in January-July 2013; these were the fines issued by the administrative committees for various offenses, the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg Council reports. The committees looked into 1,998 protocols in these seven months; most of these were based on the quarterly inspections. In 187 cases, the proceedings were stopped due to various circumstances, in 429 cases, the offenders received just a warning, in 1,381 cases, they had to pay a total of 13,807,1m RUR worth of fines. The most common offenses,

August 13, 2013. A new street around the 14th kilometer of Yekaterinburg-Koltsovo Airport Highway is now called Vystavochnaya (Exhibition St). A decree to this extent was signed by Mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Yakob, Yekaterinburg Council's press service reports. The name was chosen after a number of applications by Yekaterinburg residents who support the idea of the Urals' capital applying for the right to host the World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020. The copies of the name-establishing decree were directed to the law-enforcement authorities, the technical inventory offices,

August 13, 2013. Expert RA, a rating agency, confirmed SKB-Bank's credit rating at A+ (Very High Credit Rating), with Stable Rating Outlook. Analysts commented on such positive factors as strong competitive products and a wide geographical network, a diverse range of transaction options for customers, and a good balance of both short-term and medium-term assets and liabilities. The facts that the bank depends very little on the large investors' funds, has a big share of long-term funding in its assets and liabilities ratio, is very likely to be supported by the primary beneficiary,

August 13, 2013. Severnaya Agricultural Company (Kirovgrad Poultry Factory) is now a corporate customer of the telecommunications provider MegaFon. According to the mobile carrier's press service, over 250 of the agribusiness's employees are now MegaFon's subscribers. Given the first statistics on the number of phone calls made, the farmers are estimated to make over 11,000 minutes worth of phone calls a month. Under this new business agreement, MegaFon improved the quality of connections at a number of the company's production sites in Sverdlovsk Region. For one, the

August 13, 2013. In 2014, the number of foreign workers who will be employed in Sverdlovsk Region will be 12,000 lower than last year, Director of Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department Dmitri Antonov said at a conference. The Department reports 1,711 companies applied for job permits for foreign worker from 64 countries; there are 538 different professions involved, and the average month's pay comes to 16,800 RUR. The median number of applications per company is 61 people, the total number of foreign workers applied for is 103,524 people. 'This is not a big figure for

August 13, 2013. Investigative auhorities are now looking into the actions taken by the management of Yugoria Insurance Company and Advance Medical Company in order to give their assessment. The spokesperson for the public prosecution authorities of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region reports it has been determined that Yekaterinburg-based Advance offered more than 200m RUR worth of medical services to people who took out voluntary medical insurance policies with Yugoria State Insurance Company. However, it turned out Advance did not actually render any medical services to customers, as the

August 12, 2013. Ural Airlines now offers a special price on flights from Yekaterinburg to Moscow and back. One-way tickets start from 4,370 RUR (plus the fuel fee) and are already available for sale both on the company website ( www.uralairlines.com) and at the booking offices, the airline's press service reports. Ural Airlines currently operates up to 5 Yekaterinburg-Moscow-Yekaterinburg flights daily.

August 12, 2013. The American chain Quiznos is planning to open up to 500 restaurants in Russia in the nearest decade; this includes a number of points in Yekaterinburg: a restaurant is expected to be opened here in 2014, RIA Novosti reports. Quiznos announced its entrance in 2012. In Russia, the development of the chain is supervised by QSR Russia Ltd, an international management company and master franchisee. The first two fast food restaurants Quiznos Sub were launched in Saint Petersburg in the summer. The company intends to focus on cities with population over 1m people: Yekaterinburg,

August 12, 2013. Aeroflot Russian Airlines, a partner of Yekaterinburg EXPO 2020 Application Committee, had the exhibition's official logo painted on the bodies of two of its aircraft, the airline's press service says. The World Exhibition is one of the largest-scale international events with a many years' history. EXPO exhibitions are held every five years and last for six months. A decision to appoint a host country for the event is made by the government. EXPO 2020 has grown to become one of Russia's priority national projects, just like the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and

August 12, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region's state debt declined by 10m RUR in July 2013 and amounted to 18.37bn RUR on August 1, 2013, the region's Finance Ministry reports. This means Sverdlovsk Region has managed to decrease its state debt by 2,37bn RUR since the beginning of the year.

August 12, 2013. According to the statistical data available, Ural Federal District and Siberian Federal District invest the least amount of money into the hotel sector among other constituencies — about 1.5bn RUR, the findings of a research by INFOline called 180 Hotel Construction Projects in Russia in 2013-2016 state. According to this research findings, the greatest amount of hotel sector investments is seen in Central, Southern, and North-Western Federal Districts. On average, a little under 6bn RUR gets invested in a single hotel in these federal districts. All in all, the amount of

August 9, 2013. The seventh stage of the Russian Shooting Cup, with prizes dedicated to the memory of A.I. Brizhan, was coordinated at the shooting range of Sinara Sports Club; the club was founded by Sinara Pipe Plant (SinTZ), a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), SinTZ press service reports. The clay pigeon shooting competition was held at Sinara Club for the first time in 2011; last year, the contest was given the Russian Cup status. The championship was set up by Sinara Pipe Plant in memory of Anatoly I. Brizhan, who was head of Sinara Pipe Plant for more than 25 years and founded

August 9, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities for the environment conducted a scheduled inspection of Kamensk-Uralsky Metallurgical Plant (KUMZ) and detected some grave violations of the law, the press service for Ural Federal District division of the General Prosecutor's Office reports. The inspection revealed that the plant, which is using the local water resources, has been dumping manufacturing water into the River Iset and Volkovskoye Reservoir; now the amount of pollutants dumped actually exceeds the legal limits. A number of lab tests showed that the maximum

August 9, 2013. 921 instances of violating the Russian Federation phyto-sanitary requirements were revealed at Koltsovo Airports checkpoint in July 2013, Sverdlovsk Region division of Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog)'s press service reports. 1,850 kg of regulated products were confiscated from passengers' luggage and carry-on luggage at Koltsovo Airport's state border checkpoint in the course of phyto-sanitary inspections between July 1 and August 4, 2013. 1,081 kg of restricted goods were brought to Yekaterinburg from Tajikistan, 614 kg were brought from

August 9, 2013. SKB-Bank's own money order system called beGOm keeps expanding. The service was recently made available at 150 offices of Eskhata Bank located in some 20 cities and towns of Tajikistan, the bank's press officer says. Customers can now benefit from BeGOm services at 489 branches of various Kyrgyzstan- and Tajikistan- based banks. Last year, Bakai Bank and Aiyl Bank from Kyrgyzstan joined the system, and Eskhata Bank from Tajikistan followed suit in March 2013; in April, beGOm was introduced at Kyrgyzstan-based EcoIslamicBank. What makes beGOm money orders so

August 9, 2013. The amount of apartments for sale on Yekaterinburg existing homes market has dropped by 4% since the beginning of the summer and reached 8,700 to 9,200 apartments, Ural Chamber of Real Estate's analytical research says. At the same time, the current supply is actually 29% bigger than at the start of 2013. Existing homes prices rose by 0.4% over the last four weeks. The only exception was the city's fifth most expensive district, where prices declined by 1.5% and came to 51,748 RUR per sq m. The fluctuations stayed within 1% range, which means the market has retained