February 17, 2014. WATCH+, an application developed by MegaLabs, proved one of the top apps at Apple AppStore and Google Play. Over 200,000 people installed the app within three days of the launch. The total volume of traffic downloaded via the app was more than 100 terabytes, the company’s press service says. ‘MegaFon took its customers’ needs into account, so now one does not have to have a registration to keep track of the Olympic events: the service is available right after installation. The app is available to subscribers of all operators, and the video traffic is free for all of MegaFon

February 17, 2014. The losses of AvtoVAZ, a car making factory, might reach 7bn RUR for the year 2013, Kommersant reports. The figure was calculated by analysts after Renault published its annual report and stated €34m worth of losses from joining in AvtoVAZ in the year 2013 against €186m worth of profits in 2012. This was the actual result of the factory’s performance without the discounting of non-interest bearing charges issued by Rostech. AvtoVAZ management is now looking into ways to cut down on losses. In 2014, the company will lay off 7,500 workers (including 2,500 managers and

February 17, 2014. In 2013, Russian citizens owed their communal housing services suppliers 259bn RUR. In the first month of 2014, this figure rose by another 3% and came to 267.25bn RUR on February 1, 2014. The federal constituencies that owe most in terms of housing bills are Central Federal District (22.5% of all debts are concentrated there), the Volga Federal District, and Ural Federal District (18.1% and 16.5%, respectively), Izvestiya refers to Sequoia Credit Consolidation (a debt-collecting agency) as reporting. Last year, the Russian citizens’ communal housing services debts rose by

February 17, 2014. Rostransnadzor determined the reasons behind a railway accident that occurred at Kamensk-Uralsky Station of Sverdlovsk Railways. Three carriages got derailed and some cargo caught on fire because of the violations during the commissioning and maintenance of pointwork, the agency’s press service reports. ‘As a result, the wheel flange ran over the right point and then over the stock rail, which resulted in derailing of carriages. The accident will be classified following an expert examination of the carriage,’ the message states. Besides, the agency will keep looking into a

February 17, 2014. 3,375 fake Bank of Russia banknotes were found in Ural Federal District in 2013. All in all, 71,433 fake bills were found in the entire country last year, the bank’s press service reports. 50% of fake bills are 5,000-ruble ones (35,565 units), followed by 1,000-ruble bills (27,693 units), 500-ruble ones (7,494 units), 100-ruble ones (422 units). 50-ruble ones (104 units), and ten-ruble ones (17 units). Besides, 137 fake five-ruble coins and one ten-ruble coin were found. The greatest number of fake bills (41,353 units) was found in Central Federal District and in

February 14, 2014. The top managers of ChTPZ Group, headed by the company Director-General Yaroslav Zhdan, worked a shift at the departments of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group) and took part in a clean-up day in the streets of Pervouralsk,' the company's press service reports. 'ChTPZ Group's strategic session involved nearly 100 top managers changing their jobs for a day and mastering blue-collar skills: they became maintenance technicians, mill operators, heat-treaters, diagnosticians, and sling operators at Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant's

February 14, 2014. MRSK Urala experts detected some 13,000 cases of unauthorized use of electric power (without any contract and without any control) in Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, and Perm Territory. The damage that was uncovered during the inspection raids and later compensated for was estimated by the company at 163m RUR, the organization's press service says. 349 offenders had to face administrative liability in 2013, which was 50% more than in 2012. For one, an illegally hooked-up cable was found in the attic of a semi-detached house in Pokrovskoye, Artemovsky District.

February 14, 2014. A resident of Yekaterinburg who is suspected of deceiving 15 victims (damage is estimated at over 50m RUR) is now on the federal 'wanted' list, says Main Administration of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Internal Affairs Ministry. According to the Economic Crime Department of Yekaterinburg division of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry, the woman, who was part of an organized crime group, stole the money of customers who were planning to buy an apartment, luring them into a fake deal by offering apartments at prices below market rates. The fraudster would

February 14, 2014. MegaFon subscribers who are currently in Sochi used 100% more traffic over the first few days of the Olympics compared with the average daily use of mobile phones. According to the company's press service, their subscribers have spoken for about 19m minutes since the Olympics took off in Sochi. 'Our foreign visitors who used our roaming services followed suit and spoke for about 4m minutes,' the message states. Over the last five days, some 7.5m text messages and 180,000 multimedia messages have been sent, and about 120,000 gigabytes of traffic were

February 14, 2014. Over 150 self-regulatory organizations in the energy-saving sector are going to become unlawful on October 1, 2014, Head of Energy Efficiency Union Self-Regulatory Organization & Non-Commercial Partnership's Control Committee Mikhail Semenov said at a press conference dedicated to the creation of an investment market for the energy supply sector. 'Under the amendments to the Federal Act FZ-261 On Energy-Saving & Enhancing Energy Efficiency adopted by the Russian Federation Government, any self-regulatory organization operating in this field must have

February 13, 2014. Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station's partners from the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) embarked on the pre-launch testing of Power Generating Unit 4 and the BN-800 reactor on February 10, 2014, the nuclear power station's information and PR department reports. The testing team comprises representatives of the WANO Hong Kong office for pre-launch partnership testing, Moscow office, and Russian, French, and Ukrainian nuclear power stations. Experts are currently looking into the following: organization and administration of the production process,

February 13, 2014. The Director-General of Yekaterinburg Municipal Enterprise of Water Supply and Waste Water Treatment Alexander Kovalchik told Yekaterinburg Duma deputies about the upgrade plan for the Southern and Western filtering facilities. Yekaterinburg Administration's press service reports the facilities are expected to be upgraded within the next six to eight years in the same way as the Northern aeration station was. According to Alexander Kovalchik, the further technical upgrade program will be implemented in several stages, since it is such a large-scale project while the

February 13, 2014. Aviaport experts included Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg in the list of Russia's top five most comfortable airports, Kommersant reports. The rating, based on the data for the year 2013, featured twenty Russian airports all in all. In addition to Koltsovo, top positions were assigned to the airports of Sochi, Kazan, Vladivostok, and Novosibirsk. All of these were involved in large-scale investment projects on the construction or reconstruction of passenger terminals. For one,an international terminal was opened at Koltsovo in 2009. Last year, the domestic flights

February 13, 2014. Ural Airlines looked into its performance results for the first month of 2014. Between January 1 and January 31, 2014, Ural Airlines offered its services to 335,371 passengers, which was 33% more than a year earlier, the airline's press service reports. In January 2014, 2,739 flights were operated, including 895 international flights, 1,168 domestic flights, and 676 flights around the CIS. This was 25% more than in January 2013. The actual passenger traffic was 32% greater in January 2014 compared with January 2013 and came to 911,654,000 passenger-kilometers.

February 13, 2014. Starting next year, fingerprints will become a part of the Russian citizens' international passports, the Russian Federation Government's website states. 'Under the new decree, the list of personal data that are fed into the electronic chips contained in the staple identification documents of Russian Federation subjects that these subjects use to go out of and enter the Russian Federation (adopted by the Russian Federation Government's Decree 125 dated March 4, 2010) now gets complemented with an image of papillary pictures of two fingers,' the

February 12, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region is interested in strengthening its ties with Great Britain in the hi tech sectors such as machine-tool building, the aerospace industry, science, and education. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev and Her Majesty's Consul General for Ekaterinburg Neil Semple spoke about the two territories' cooperation prospects in the course of a business meeting, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region's Information Policies Department says. A trade delegation from Britain is going to arrive in Yekaterinburg in June. 'I have already asked those in

February 12, 2014. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev asked Sverdlovsk Region Government to look into the possibility of putting up a utility pipe manufacturing plant in the area. According to the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region's Information Policies Department, Sukhoi Log will be considered as the possible site for the plant, as over 35,000 people there had no access to the central water supply system for over a week due to a recent accident. 'We always need things in this sector, including materials. This federal constituency has perhaps one of the longest water supply

February 12, 2014. 12.02.2014. MegaFon's MegaFaces Pavilion was opened in the Olympic park on the day the opening ceremony was held in Sochi. Volunteers from Russia, Japan, and Côte d'Ivoire became the first faces of the Olympics. Their large-scale 3D portraits were featured on the facade of the pavilion, the company's press service reports. On February 7, the long-awaited opening of MegaFon's innovative pavilion took place at the Olympic park. The enormous portraits on the facades aroused great interest in the visitors to the games, including Minister for Mass

February 12, 2014. Starting from 2014, Rosstat will no longer publish any data on foreign investments in Russia, Prime refers to head of Rosstat Alexander Surinov as saying. Prior to 2014, Rosstat and the Bank of Russia kept supervising foreign investments, but the data were quite different because different methods were used, and the respondents surveyed as well as the sources of information used were also different. The legislative changes now made the Bank of Russia the only official body to keep track of the foreign investments into the country. The new law came into effect in 2014.

February 12, 2014. According to experts' estimates, the Olympics-hosting countries usually experience a stock market increase, while their national currency grows stronger thanks to a greater foreign investment inflow, Bank Koltso Urala reports. Head of the bank's Planning & Analytics Department Igor Zadorin says that the foreign media are currently taking a greater interest in the Olympics and in Russia on the whole. These current conditions are quite conducive to business negotiations and attracting new investments into the country. For one, there still remains a question of