September 13, 2013. Ural Airlines is expanding its flights network around China and launching a new international flight from Chelyabinsk to Beijing. The airline’s press service says the first flight from the capital of the South Urals to the capital of China will be operated on September 25, 2013. Until the end of October, scheduled flights will be operated every Wednesday, and starting from November, they will be available on Thursdays. A round trip ticket will cost from 26,400 RUR (all fees and charges included). ‘Ural Airlines’ also operate scheduled flights from Yekaterinburg to Beijing

September 13, 2013. A solemn presentation of the pilot make of the AC freight loco by Ural Locomotives (a joint venture run by Sinara Group and Siemens AG that is based in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region) took place in the course of the 4th International Vehicles & Technologies Show EXPO 1520, Sinara Group’s PR Center reports. First Vice President of Russian Railways Vadim Morozov, CEO of Divison Rail Systems Siemens Jochen Eickholt, President of Sinara Group Dmitri Pumpyanski, and Ural Locomotives Director-General Alexander Saltayev were present at the event. The high-profile

September 12, 2013. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member of ChTPZ Group) completed the first stage of connecting the production departments to a close-cycle water circulation system. Once the system has been launched, the company will be able to increase the amount of recycled water, to reduce the amount of clean water taken from the River Chusovaya down to a minimum, and to decrease the amount of manufacturing water dumped into the river by at least 15%, the plant’s press officer says. The system was put up within the framework of the enterprise’s long-term environmental program for

September 12, 2013. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) took part in the international conference and exhibition dedicated to oil and natural gas production in the Russian part of the Arctic RAO/CIS Offshore; the event is held in Saint Petersburg on September 10-13, 2013, the company’s press service reports. The conference is a traditional biannual event. RAO/CIS Offshore features projects on the development of the oil and gas deposits in the Russian Arctic and the CIS continental shelf, new equipment and technologies for drilling and developing marine deposits, and protection and security

September 12, 2013. Uralmashzavod Board of Directors is going to consider closing down its daughter company UralmashSpetsstal on September 18, 2013, the enterprise’s official statement says. UralmashSpetsstal specializes in the production of metallurgical goods. The company was set up in December 2004 in the course of restructuring OMZ Corporation’s production facilitates.

September 12, 2013. Ural Airlines is now selling tickets for the flights bound for Dubai, Rome, Prague, Karlovy Vary, Munich, Tel Aviv, and Harbin – the traditional winter time holiday destinations for the residents of Yekaterinburg. The air carrier’s press service says that booking now saves you a lot of money, as special rates are offered on these popular tourist destinations, and the price depends on the date of booking. Three different rates apply depending on when you book: 2 or fewer days before the flight (late booking), more than 30 days before the flight (early booking), and more

September 12, 2013. Private individuals owed Sverdlovsk Region budget 2bn RUR worth of property tax as of August 1, 2013, including 1.3bn RUR worth of unpaid transport tax, the Federal Tax Service’s press service reports. ‘The budget is missing the amount of unpaid transport tax that is 1.7 times more than the amount of actual payments received. Remarkably, most of these non-payers are owners of expensive automobiles that are over 250 horsepower strong,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service Sergey Loginov said in the course of an interdepartmental meeting

September 11, 2013. Russian Vice Premier Dmitri Rogozin is to arrive in Sverdlovsk Region on September 12; the official is in charge of controlling the Russian defense industry, and his visit was announced to reporters by Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergey Nosov. Nosov said the Vice Premier, who will be accompanied by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskih, is coming because of the arms exhibition at Staratel range in Nizhniy Tagil. ‘These high-profile visitors are expected to travel the city’s main roads as well, this means the

September 11, 2013. Ural Federal University was featured in the rating of the world’s top 550 colleges in 2013; this rating was created by the British company QS Quacquarelli Symonds, RIA Novosti reports. A year earlier, UFU was among the top 500. Despite losing points in the rating, UFU still has one of the highest numbers of students (over 30,000) and stands quite high in terms of research achievements. There are 17 other Russian colleges on QS Quacquarelli Symonds list, the best ones being M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (120th in the rating), Saint Petersburg State University

September 11, 2013. The fact that Yekaterinburg applied for the right to host the EXPO 2020 exhibition set very high expectations for Russia on the whole, ITAR TASS refers to Russia’s Industry & Trade Minister Denis Manturov as saying in Paris in the course of his meeting with the ambassadors of member states of the BIE. ‘We have been taking part in various exhibitions for over 150 years now, but, unfortunately, the world’s major event, EXPO, has never been hosted in Russia yet. This is why the country’s leaders intend to give all their support to the efforts to make EXPO 2020 a very good

September 11, 2013. Sinara-Transport Machines (STM, a member of Sinara Group) is going to join the 4th International Railways Vehicles & Technologies Show EXPO 1520; the event will be held at the experimental range of VNIIZhT in Shcherbinka, Moscow Region, on September 11-14, 2013, Sinara Group’s press service reports. The holding is going to display its new locomotives: the freight diesel TE8, the two-diesel TEM14, and the energy-efficient TEM9N with the smart hybrid asynchronous drive. Visitors to the fair will also be able to get acquainted with the technical potential of the gas

September 11, 2013. Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for eight months of 2013. Between January 1, 2013 and August 31, 2013, the air carrier flew 2,945,845 passengers, which is 26% more than in January-August 2012, the airline’s press service reports. 22,351 flights have been operated since the beginning of the year, including 8,310 international flights, 9,143 domestic flights, and 4,898 flights to and from the CIS member states. The air carrier’s passenger turnover rose by 25% in the eight months of 2013 compared with a year earlier and amounted to 7,852,623,000

September 11, 2013. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) looked into its environmental management system performance in the first half of 2013. The analysis revealed that MMK carried out its production activity in the six months of 2013 in full compliance with the Russian Federation environmental protection requirements and international regulations, the company reports. Both the gross and the specific atmospheric discharge volumes remained the same in the first half of 2013 as in the first half of 2012. The gross discharge of pollutants into water bodies actually decreased by 5.8% in

September 10, 2013. The number of electric power consumers applying for a technological hookup to the grid increases by 40% every year: this news was announced at the 1st All-Russian conference dedicated to affordable electric grids and projects, experience, and topical issues relating to this field. The conference was held in Moscow under the auspices of Rosseti. Sverdlovsk Region’s Press Service & Information Department reports that the local electric power suppliers signed 14,000 contracts with their subscribers in the first part of 2013. This is 15% more than in the first half of

September 10, 2013. A traditional professional skills contest was held at Sinara Pipe Plant (SinTZ, a member of Pipe Metallurgical Compayny/TMK) among the young ferrous metallurgical industry workers, TMK press service reports. SinTZ holds skills competitions among its 20-something employees who belong to nine staple blue-collar jobs. The contest coordinators – A.I. Brizhan Corporate Youth Council - believe that these competitions help shape the employees’ values and enhance the prestige of the blue-collar jobs as well as reveal the hidden reserves that boost labor productivity. 5 finalists,

September 10, 2013. Analysts from the Delovoy Kvartal magazine prepared a list of Yekaterinburg’s largest banks in terms of lending services: the rating features the top banks in terms of loans issued in Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region as of July 1, 2013. SKB-Bank was among the Top5 in terms of overall loan book volume and was No.1 in terms of loans issued to private individuals, the bank’s press service reports. According to the analysts, SKB-Bank issued 24.388bn RUR worth of loans to private individuals in Sverdlovsk Region by July 1, 2013, of which 22.4bn RUR came from consumer loans

September 10, 2013. A rotor furnace produced by the Finnish company Kumera arrived at Karabashmed in early September. The 170-ton equipment was delivered first to Nizhnekamsk by sea and then to Karabash by car with the help of a special trawl. The shipping was handled by VostokMontazhMekhanizatciya, Russian Copper Company’s PR Administration reports. ‘A lot of preparations have been made at Karabashmed: a special pathway was built for such a large consignment, and many special-purpose vehicles had to be employed for transporting it. The new rotor furnace will replace the current APM140; this

September 10, 2013. In the summer of 2013, 3,600 employees of Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant as well as their family members and a number of long-service employees had a chance to improve their health at the company resorts. The plant workers could choose among several holiday packages: Family, Child, Mother and Child, and Health, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. Some 1,500 children of the plants’ employees spent their holidays in Yelanchik and Gagarinsky summer camps. A 21-day camp stay only cost their parents under 4,000 RUR. Thanks to support from

September 9, 2013. The court declared that Uralsevergaz stopping the supply of natural gas to the boilers in Sverdlovsk Region was illegitimate. So were the actions of TSK Vertical, which deals in boiler maintenance, relating to a halt in the supply of hot water to the local residents and to the socially important buildings in the area, the spokesperson for the public prosecution authorities of Sverdlovsk Region reports. The claim was placed with the court after an inspection by the public prosecutor of the fact that hot water supply was stopped in May 2013, which left over 400 apartment

September 9, 2013. 228,554 people registered with Sverdlovsk Region government employment agencies in January-July 2013 (compared with 291,211 people a year earlier), of whom 98,284 people needed help finding a suitable job (compared with 100,065 people a year earlier), Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department’s press service reports. The share of people who were currently jobless in the total number of those registered was 69.8%. In January-July 2013, 39,311 people were declared jobless (compared with 44,702 people a year earlier). 175,385 potential employees and 10,903 employers