UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s debt reached 66.5bn RUR on January 1, 2016, the local Cabinet’s official website states. The figure came to 48.2bn RUR as recently as on October 1, 2106, which means the debt amount went up by over 18bn RUR in the last quarter of 2015. This year’s budget sets the upper limit for the administration of internal state debt at 5.5bn RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. The number of visitors at Sverdlovsk Region’s ski resorts was considerably less impressive during the New Year break this year than a year earlier because of cold weather, Gora Listvennaya Ski Resort informs UrBC. ‘We grew more popular after Turkey and Egypt became unavailable, but the outside temperature was too low for skiing between January 2 and January 7, so we only had 350 to 500 coming in every day instead of the usual 1,200 to 1,300. It was only on January 9-10 that the good weather set in and the number of customers rose back to normal,’ the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Yekaterinburg Council issued 891 construction permits for 3.051m m2 worth of buildings last year. The city council’s press service reports permits were issued for 133 apartment buildings (1.5m m2), 298 low-rise buildings and private houses (121,000 m2), and 460 non-residential buildings (1.43m m2). In 2014, 765 permits for 2.873m m2 worth of buildings got issued by the council. Also, 189 apartment buildings (3.2m m2 all in all) are currently under construction.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Yekaterinburg proved one of this year’s top ten tourist places according to a rating Travel.ru created using the hotel booking data for January 11-December 31, 2016. Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Perm, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Saratov also made it to this list of Russia’s most popular cities. This year, travelers have booked an average of 3.5 nights (3,700 RUR per night) in Yekaterinburg. The price of a hotel stay in other cities comes to 2,800 RUR per night in Saint Petersburg, 3,400 RUR in Moscow, and 5,700 RUR in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Burevestnik Central Scientific Research Institute (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) introduced a 1% quota for workers under eighteen (including orphans and children experiencing socioeconomic difficulties) in accordance with Nizhniy Novgorod Region’s legislation. The company press service reports a sixteen-year-old was hired as an assistant at the Power Equipment Department on January 12, 2106. ‘Our team welcomed the new employee to the company in the course of a special ceremony. Under the Federal Children’s Rights Protection Act, he

January 18, 2016. Family members of 33% of respondents lost their jobs in the last months of 2015, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center says. The unemployment problem is estimated to be at -28 points in Russia on the whole, while the Russians’ job-finding potential fluctuated between 43 and 50 points throughout the year and came to 49 points last December. It is reported that every one if five people (22%) is positive they will be able to find a similar job easily if they get fired. Every one if four respondents (25%) believes they will be able to find a job like their current one

January 18, 2016. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) paid some of its basic debts with the state and corporation’s support last December and is now ready to expand its production. According to the company press service, all the delayed wages and salaries have been paid out to workers in full. The better part of the overall amount was paid even before December, the rest was directed to the employees’ accounts before New Year. The wage and salary payments came to 425m RUR altogether. The plant also paid all of its taxes and directed payments to the

January 18, 2016. The price of gasoline came to 34.42 RUR per liter in Yekaterinburg in the first ten days of January, Rosstat reports. AI 92 is available for 33.42 RUR per liter, AI 95 for 35.76 RUR, and diesel fuel for 36.34 RUR. In fact, prices went down in thirty-five Russian federal constituencies between January 4 and January 10; the decrease was most pronounced in Kyzyl (-2.3%) and Ulan Ude (-1.1%). At the same time, gas prices also went up in Yaroslavl (+1.3%), Veliky Novgorod (+0.1%), and Nizhniy Novgorod (+0.1%).

January 18, 2016. Gazprom’s IAS-calculated net loss amounted to 2bn RUR sharp in the third quarter of 2015 (against 105.676bn RUR in profit a year earlier), Interfax reports. This figure was actually better than the Interfax panel forecast of 17.509bn RUR in losses. Uralsib proved to have made the closest informed guess at this. The company’s free cash flow is now back to positive (29bn RUR), its revenues are up by 14% (1.293 trillion RUR against the expected 1.286 trillion). Its EBITDA rose by 3%, up to 490.875bn RUR (against the expected 448bn RUR). The company lost 400.378bn RUR on

January 18, 2016. The share of Sverdlovsk Region’s residents’ income directed to loan repayments amounted to 25.95% at the end of 2015, National Bureau of Credit History reports. This monthly loan repayment/income ratio decreased by 0.95% compared with April 2015, whereas the country’s overall PTI dropped by as much as 3.91% (down to 26.91%) by the end of last year. The ratio declined most noticeably in the segment of borrowers with medium-sized incomes (by 4.1%); as for the smallest-income and largest-income segments, the figures went down by 3.99% and 3.44%, respectively. The debt burden

January 15, 2016. Yekaterinburg police officers detained a 27-year-old man from Beloyarsky who is suspected of real estate fraud. The spokesperson for the city police department says the suspect arrived in Yekaterinburg last September to rent a studio apartment in Shchors St for one day. He then immediately advertised the place online as a rental location available for a month. ‘Three different people called who were interested in the offer and decided to sign the rental contract. The suspect actually signed three deals in one day, getting 17,000 RUR 10,000 RUR, and 28,000 RUR from the first,

January 15, 2016. Russia’s international air travel market got 14% smaller last year, Finmarket refers to the Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov as saying. ‘This is the country’s average; in fact, the figure dropped to as much as 30%-40% to 50% in certain airports,’ the minister said. In the meantime, the domestic market turnover reached 93m passengers last year, Sokolov said, which was almost as much as in the year 2014 (93.181m passengers). According to the minister, last year’s share of domestic flights amounted to 55%-60% of the country’s entire air travel market.

January 15, 2016. Regional Airports Holding (a part of Renova Group) bought a 17.28% shareholding in Koltsovo International Airport from Sverdlovsk Region Government, thus becoming the owner of 87.04% of the airport’s shares. The transaction’s cost is reported to come to 1.259bn RUR. The controlling shareholding went to Regional Airports Management Company in early 2015; the 17.5% stake was sold for the opening bid of 1.259bn RUR. No other potential bidders had applied for the auction.

January 15, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises had to pay a total of 1.655m RUR in fines for selling defective children’s products, the local division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) reports. According to the division, 148 sellers of children’s products got inspected last year, with over 12,000 items examined altogether. The figure included 4,476 children’s games and toys. It was determined that 1,536 items (total worth 479,800 RUR, most of them from China), or 34.3% of all the children’s goods available for purchase, did not meet the existing legal selling

January 15, 2016. Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport (a member enterprise of Regional Airports Holding) offered its services to 4,247,541 passengers last year, which was 6% less than one year earlier. The airport’s press service reports the decrease in passenger traffic had to do with the considerably shrinking international air travel market. ‘Slightly over 1.5m passengers traveled abroad from Koltsovo last year, whereas in the previous year, the figure was 29% larger. At the same time, domestic flights turnover actually went up by nearly 14% in 2015 compared with 201 and came to 2,745,236

January 14, 2016. The number of Russian tourists spending their New Year break abroad dropped by 30% to 35% this year compared with early 2015, RIA Novosti refers to Executive Director of the Association of Russian Tour Operators Maia Lomidze as stating. ‘Despite a certain traffic surge for some destinations, outgoing tourism plummeted by an average of 30% to 35% against last year’s season in every market segmen,’ Lomidze said.

January 14, 2016. Inflation rate was registered at 12.9% in Russia last year, Rosstat reports. Among food items, the prices of sunflower oil, fish and seafood, pasta, and fruit and vegetables grew most dramatically, by 37.2%, 20.9%, 19.5%, and 17.4%, respectively. Among non-food items, prices of tobacco products, laundry detergents, textiles, and medicines rose the most, by 26.6%, 22.4%, 19.7%, and 19.6%, respectively. Housing bills increased by 10.1%, medical ones by 11.1%, and insurance services grew 20.5% costlier.

January 14, 2016. Ural Locomotives manufactured the record-setting 113 Sinara (2ES6) freight locos in 2015, the company press service reports. Sinara 2ES6 is one of the first Russian new-generation freight locos to be used by Russian Railways. A pilot sample was presented on December 1, 2006 and certified for serial-scale production in June 2008. Starting from this year, Sinara 2ES6 is used at Sverdlovsk Railways. The plant has made 561 locos altogether so far. Sinara is an innovative product: over 80% of all the technological solutions it took to produce it have never been used in Russian

January 14, 2016. 1,513 customer complaints relating to poor financial services were filed with Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state-run consumer rights watchdog) last year; this was 60% more than one year earlier. The agency reports this amounted to 15% of all customer complaints for last year. Now 78% of these specific complaints were related to banking services, 16% to insurance companies’ services, 3% to micro-financing organizations’ services, and 1% to agents’ services. The division carried out 128 inspections aimed to check financial organizations’ compliance with

January 14, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region Government keeps ignoring the increasing rate of suicides in many local towns. Psychiatrists say suicide rate is directly proportional to the local economic situation. Sverdlovsk Region’s Senior Psychiatrist Oleg Serdyuk says Yekaterinburg is one of the least affected cities. ‘Other towns, in the meanwhile, have a much higher suicide rate than others. I am talking about cases with actual lethal outcomes here. Economy is definitely a factor,’ Serdyuk said. ‘The social policies that crush the population influence the number of suicides directly,’ says head of