UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. The average asking price on Yekaterinburg existing homes market has dropped by 6.1% since the beginning of the year and now comes to 71,555 RUR per m2, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Prices declined most in the city’s least expensive outskirts (-1.4% in the last four weeks, down to 52,965 RUR per m2). As for the second, third, and fourth most expensive districts, prices went slightly down to 76,026 RUR 65,861 RUR, and 61,583 RUR per m2, respectively, so the decrease, on average, fluctuated within 0.8% to 0.9%. The price of centrally located

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. Yurginsky Plant (an asset of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) and Siberian Coal Company/UKSIB signed a contract for the former to supply the latter with a set of mining equipment for Uvalnaya Mine. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s press service reports their plant was notified of winning in the multi-round supplier selection procedure as early as July. ‘The final decision was taken during the customer representatives’ visit to the plant. They could take a look at the plant’s production facilities and talk with the tech support teams about the most suitable

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 13, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant/ChTZ (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) shipped its B10M bulldozer to Armenia; this is the first order shipment to Armenia this year so far, the company press service reports. The mechanical-gear bulldozer is meant for one of the country’s natural gas-producing companies. The vehicle will be used for O&M of pipelines. The delivery was arranged through the plant’s Armenian dealer, which already supplied to such bulldozers to one of the state ministries last year. These two bulldozers are now used for

UrBC, Moscow, November 12, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is expected to sell over 11m tons of metal goods by the end of the year, including 7.432m tons sold on the home market. This is a little less than in 2014 (11.65m tons), MMK Deputy Director-General for Sales Nikolai Lyadov said at the international Russian Metal Market Conference. Magnitogorsky Metall refers to Lyadov as saying that the slight decrease in sales has to do with dropping domestic demand for metal goods: both the construction and the car-making markets are slimming. Production output in the car-making

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. 3,480 agreements on privatization of housing (overall area 145,000 m2) were registered by Yekaterinburg estate authorities this year so far. The city council reports 190 agreements (overall area 7,455 m2) got signed in October alone. ‘Last year, the number of contracts was 2,800. Now the Russian Government extended the deadline for free-of-charge privatization of property for the fourth time in February 2015. The new deadline expires on March 1, 2016,’ the city council says. Under the Housing Privatization Act adopted on July 4, 1991, the process took

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Luggage pertaining to U6 3054 Hurghada-Yekaterinburg flight (operated on November 7, 2015) was delivered via a scheduled flight from Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport to Yekaterinburg, MoE’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. The said luggage, 2,057 kg all in all, got unloaded and seal-protected at Koltsovo Airport’s warehouse. Luggage owners will be notified of the arrival by the airport luggage rescue team and handed their things back starting from November 11. Now the luggage of all Russian travelers coming home from Egypt (with the exception of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Experts at Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station launched BN 800 Reactor at Power Generating Unit 4 at 10:10 PM on November 10, 2015, the station’s press service reports. The new fast reactor is meant, partially, for experimental use, so the key task at the moment is to acquire expertise and come up with technological solutions for a closed cycle. Based on the results of the trial runs, a decision will be made whether it would be expedient to produce fast reactors on a serial scale. Rostechnadzor recently provided the station with a new operation license

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. ChTPZ Group is going to present its second-generation threaded joints at the International Metal Expo 2015 Exhibition in Moscow on November 10-13, the company press service reports. The Group makes a debut presentation of its second-generation threaded joints that are super-resistant to borehole crooking, compression load, and external pressure and have improved rotation torque characteristics. This year’s theme is dedicated to the five years since White Metallurgy was introduced as the Group’s corporate philosophy. The company stand will feature

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 12, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation bought a new loco for its head plant’s Volchansky subsidiary. According to the corporation’s press service, the locomotive will be used for transfer of railcars from the plant’s premises to Lesnaya Volchanka Station, from where the trains will complete their designated routes. The transfer used to be outsourced, but now the company will manage the task on its own. The new loco, painted in company colors, has already been delivered to Volchansky subsidiary and is currently undergoing startup and commissioning. A locomotive

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. 210 tax crime reports were made to Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Investigative Committee in nine months of 2015. According to the committee’s press service, 69 criminal lawsuits were instituted as a result. 34 cases involve charges of tax evasion by a company (Article 199 of Russia’s Criminal Code). All in all, the committee handled 95 tax crime-related suits between January and September 2015. ‘39 suits were completed within this period and either placed with the court for hearing or dismissed after the accused had paid all their fines and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Yekaterinburg came 6th in the rating of one hundred Russian cities with population over 175,000 people; the rating was carried by Urbanica, an urban planning institute, Expert-Ural reports. Surgut was No.1 on the list, followed by Nizhnevartovsk and Tyumen. The rating was based on such criteria as availability of housing, traffic intensity, up-to-date consumer spending patterns, housing prices, locals’ buying capacity, the scale of housing bills, and crime rate.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. As of November 1, 2015, Sverdlovsk Region-based employers owed their workers 14,702,000 RUR in delayed wages and salaries, Sverdlovskstat reports. It is reported the number is 25.4 times more than in the previous quarter and 2.7 times more than a year earlier. Most of the workers whose wages haven’t been paid in time are employed within the processing industry sector: 460 employees are owed 13.4m RUR all in all. Also, 140 people working in the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water are owed 1.268m RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Following a ban on Egypt-bound flights, Yekaterinburg travel market might halve in size, Director of Nathalie Tours Yekaterinburg Oleg Khiger said at a press conference. ‘Things look grave enough. The economic recession has already resulted in a 50% drop in the number of travel agents in the summer, and those that did remain afloat had to lay off staff. Now this diminished market will halve again. With Egypt no longer an option, we’ll have nothing to offer to at least 50% of our wintertime travelers. Naturally, neither Sochi nor the Crimea, let alone

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2015. Representatives of Ural Vagon Zavod Scientific & Production Corporation and of UVZ-Logistik met with delegates from Cuban Railway Union and El Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Sidero Mecánica (GESIME) to discuss their prospective joint venture. The corporation’s press service reports the Cuban delegates paid a visit to UVZ-Logistik’s head office to get acquainted with the company’s operation technology and the way the freight forwarders manages its 40,000-plus railcars. The host company’s representatives also made a presentation on their experience

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, November 10, 2015. Vyborgsky Shipbuilding Plant (a member enterprise of United Shipbuilding Corporation) commenced working on the diesel-electric icebreaker Aker ARC 130 А. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is going to be one of the key suppliers of ship steel for the project, MMK reports. Vyborgsky Shipbuilding Plant landed a contract for the construction of two Finnish-designed Aker ARC 130 А icebreakers for Gazpromneft Novy Port. The two 22-Megawatt vessels are expected to be commissioned in 2017. Both of them will be able to break up to two meters of ice and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 9, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Government carried a budget proposal for 2016 recently. Revenues are expected at 173.6bn RUR, with 50.9bn RUR to be directed to education, 37.4bn RUR to healthcare, and 42.2bn RUR to social welfare projects. This year‘s expenses came to 176.2bn RUR, which is nearly 3bn RUR more than the expected revenue figures for next year. In 2016, expenses will actually have to be cut down drastically down to 189.5bn RUR (10bn RUR less than the 199.1bn RUR originally proposed for this year). Budget deficit is estimated at 15.957bn RUR (against 29bn

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Government cut the constituency’s reserve funds and the anti-corruption budget, the Legislative Assembly deputy Andrei Alshevskikh wrote on his Facebook page. ‘The government’s reserve fund for 2016 comes to 500m RUR (300m less than a year earlier). 350,000 RUR will be allocated for corruption control measures against 1.2m RUR this year (-70%),’ he wrote. Alshevskikh says the Governor Administration will cost 238.7m RUR to maintain (compared with 238.5m RUR this year). Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly will get 4.1m

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2015. Sverdlovsk Railways handled 15.7% less of building materials shipments than a year earlier; the overall figure was 14.8m tons, the freight forwarder’s press service reports. The amount of chemical and mineral fertilizers sent as cargo decreased by 1%, down to 11.9m tons, that of scrap metal decreased by 11.7%, down to 2.1m tons, that of coke decreased by 12.2%, down to 1m tons, and that of cement decreased by 2.8%, down to 2.1m tons. The overall amount of cargo handled by the company came to 114.4m tons in ten months of 2015, which is 2.5% more than in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2015. Eleven flights arrived in Yekaterinburg from Egypt (eight from Hurghada and three from Sharm El Sheikh) by 10:00 AM on November 9, bringing 1,699 passengers (including 453 children) back home, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the MoE reports. ‘A team of MoE experts is present at Koltsovo Airport on a 24-hour basis, collaborating closely with the airport’s management and special-purpose units. A group of MoE psychologists and doctors from our emergency medicine center are available to help the arriving passengers. Special attention will be paid to seniors

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2015. Yekaterinburg developers commissioned 913,000 m2 of new housing and 707,000 m2 of commercial estate in ten months of the year, the city council reports. Three sections of Das Haus Apartment Complex in Vosmoye Marta St/Aviatsionnaya St/Tsiolkovsky St/Stepan Razin St, an apartment building at 9 Elektrikov St, an apartment building at 6 Patriotov St, the first sections of Rassvetny Apartment Complex in Rassvetnaya St/Syromolotov St/ 40-letiya Komsomola St, an apartment building at 126 Tatishchev St, and an apartment building at 1 Nikolai Ostrovsky St were