UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2016. Director-General of Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) Igor Lobov received a special thank-you letter from Russian Geographical Society’s Omsk division for his support of the Heroes Live While They Are Remembered Project, the company press service reports. ‘The project, coordinated by the Society’s Omsk division and the web portal Zhiviye and funded by Gazprom Neft, was completed at the end of March. Igor Lobov was one of the city’s very first business managers to respond to the coordinator’s call for help in keeping the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 5, 2016. The representatives of the Swedish company GlobeCert AB carried out a certification audit of MMK METIZ pre-stressing strands, which means the company can now supply this product to Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Estonia, and Latvian markets. MMK METIZ got certified for compliance of its 9.3mm, 12.5mm, 15.2mm, and 15.7mm pre-stressing strands with Parts 1 and 3 of Sweden’s prEN 10138: 2006 standard. ‘The Swedish company representatives confirmed that MMK METIZ ensures efficient control over the technological processes of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 5, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has organized a Welcome Day for its suppliers for the fourteenth time this month. Within one year these monthly meetings were introduced, seventy-nine different companies have taken part already. Fourteen companies’ representatives attended the last meeting. ‘The unfailingly high number of participants is one proof that these meetings provide more transparency for our purchasing processes on the one hand and allow MMK to obtain more information about its new suppliers and the new products on their

UrBC, Moscow, April 5, 2016. 4,374 new cars were sold in Sverdlovsk Region in the first two months of the year, down 7.5% on a year earlier, Avtostat reports. All in all, Sverdlovsk Region was the country’s ninth largest car market among all the federal constituencies, with 2.5% of all the sales on the Russian market made there. One year ago, the sales figure stood at 4,731 new automobiles, which was 58.1% less than in the year 2014 (17,900 units). The country’s overall car market sagged by 48.5% at the time (compared with 339,700 units sold in the year 2014).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) is offering an all-expenses-covered trip to the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games this summer as a prize to one of its customers, the bank’s press service reports. ‘If you use your UBRD Visa card to pay for your purchases between April 1 and June 9, 2016, you have a chance to witness the 2016 Olympics opening ceremony first-hand,’ the press service says. To take part in the prize-drawing, you need to register at rio.visa.ru, use your bank card for at least five payment transactions (amounting to at least

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2016. Rus-Rating affirmed SKB-Bank’s credit ratings at BBB- and its country rating at AA, the bank’s press service reports. This is actually the best score a Ural Federal District-based bank has got so far. ‘The score is based on the following factors: good net interest margin, a recognizable local market brand, and moderate sensitivity to risks,’ the bank says. According to Rus-Rating, SKB-Bank is a large-sized bank and one of the Urals’ leading financial institutions. The bank specializes in loans and services to private customers and small and medium-sized

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon identified its top Internet traffic user among Yekaterinburg business centers, the company press service reports. This was Stroganov in Karl Liebknecht St. ’The data transfer speed and quality allow for increasingly extensive use of Internet connection at work. We looked into all the data from our terminals covering over fifty business centers in Yekaterinburg and found a record-setter. It turns out high-speed Internet connection is used by people working at Stroganov the most, together they have downloaded an

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2016. Sputnik, a hockey team sponsored by Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation, spoke about its winter 2015/2016 performance at a recent press conference, the corporation’s press service reports. According to the hockey club representatives, despite the relatively bad luck at the start of the season, the team managed to make it to the play-off and nearly made it to the next round of the Bratina Cup, losing to Neftekamsk’s three-time championship winner Toros. ‘There was a great surge of positive emotion at the end of the championship, and some time was needed to recover.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2016. The price of land went up by 5% in the last three months and by 18% in the last year, the real estate website N1.RU’s press service reports. ‘Land prices tend to go up in March when the gardening season begins, but last year they actually went down against January, from 65,400 RUR at the start of the year down to 60,900 RUR per 100m2 three months later,’ the press service says. This year, prices rose by 5% in the first three months and currently come to 71,900 RUR per 100m2 on average. This is 18% more than one year earlier, when the figure was 60,900 RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2016. Ural Airlines decided to celebrate April Fool’s Day by offering special prices on domestic and international flights, the air carrier’s press service says. For example, reduced-price tickets are now available for Tomsk-Moscow, Barnaul-Moscow, Irkutsk-Moscow, Chita-Moscow, and Omsk-Moscow flights. Prices have also been reduced for Saint Petersburg-Tbilisi, Yekaterinburg-Tbilisi, Moscow-Tivat, Yekaterinburg-Paris, Moscow-Belgrad, and Moscow-Larnaca flights. The special offer holds for flights operated between April 1 and May 31, 2016. Bookings can only be

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2016. Starting from April 1, 2016, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) and UnionCard will no longer be partners, the bank’s press service reports. ‘This means all the UnionCards the bank has issued so far will be deactivated,’ the press service says. The bank’s customers are thus advised to get their UnionCards exchanged for their Unembossed Visa counterparts. The exchange can be performed at any of the bank’s branches any day as long as you have your passport and your UnionCard with you.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s innovative 12-196-01 and 12-196-02 gondola-type railcars can now be repaired and overhauled less frequently: the decision was to extend the time between repairs was taken by the railcar committee in Saratov, the company press service reports. The first overhaul used to be given to a railcar sixteen years after the commissioning date, now it comes to eighteen years. Also, the time/mileage between the manufacturing date and the first-time depot repairs as well as between the first-time depot repairs and the first overhaul used

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 4, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Volchansky subsidiary offered a guided tour of the plant to 5th and 6th graders from local School 23. According to the corporation’s press service, this was part of the plant’s job counseling program aimed at getting the schoolchildren interested in blue-collar and engineering jobs. The children were introduced to safety rules and the plant’s history and traditions and were shown some of the production departments. ‘The gas cylinder department and X-ray lab were the places to learn about the modern production control

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 1, 2016. Prices went down by 1.8% on Yekaterinburg existing home market compared with the start of the year and by 8.8% compared with one year earlier, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. As of March 28, 2016, the average asking price of a square meter of housing stood at 69,459 RUR. There are currently slightly over 10,300 apartments and 1,850 rooms in communal apartments for sale in the chamber’s database. It normally tales between four and half and five and a half months to make a sale. Prices declined most noticeably in the city’s second and third most expensive

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 1, 2016. A new-generation, highly productive excavator meant for making bund walls was recently introduced to the ore mining and processing enterprise EVRAZ KGOK’s tailing dump. The bund walls are intended to make sure the facility’s safe. According to the company press service, the new machine is twice as productive as its earlier counterpart. ‘The new excavator is fitted with two arms (10.5 and16.5 meters long) to perform various kinds of operations. The machine is suitable even for harshest climatic conditions and is extremely operator-safe due to its panoramic

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 1, 2016. Ural Airlines will be operating their new Kemerovo-Saint Petersburg flight every Thursday and Sunday starting from April 28, the air carrier’s press service reports. The return flights will be available on Saturdays and Wednesdays. The plane arrives in Saint Petersburg at 9:10 AM, which means passengers can plan their business agenda efficiently and use the convenient connecting flights to other Russian cities as well as destinations abroad. ‘Saint Petersburg is a city where you can combine business and pleasure and do some sightseeing, go to the theater,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 1, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s customers have invested over 1bn RUR in savings certificates so far, the bank’s press service reports. The increase was 22% in February alone (17% above the market’s average as quoted by the Central Bank). The UBRD Debit Operations Director Olga Aksenova says most customers go for certificates with a 180-day period, with the average invested amount at 476,000 RUR (40% more than the average amount placed in savings deposits). Over 60% of savings certificates fall into the 100,000 RUR-1,000,000 RUR range.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 1, 2016. President of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce & Industry Sergei Katyrin congratulated Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko on getting elected onto the chamber’s Board, the corporation’s press service reports. Katyrin directed a special letter to the plant, stressing that getting elected onto the Board is a recognition of Oleg Sienko’s contribution to the development of Russia’s businesses and a sign of the business community’s great trust. ‘I am confident our work together will result in new successes such as a better entrepreneurial

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 1, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) invested around 80m RUR in the development of new technologies and mastering of new, innovative products last year, the company reports. For one, MMK can now make НСТ600Х duplex steel for automobile body sheets and has successfully experimented with the НСТ780Х and НСТ980Х steels, the pilot batches of which have already been supplied to customers. MMK is also working, with good results, on the production of X70 steel plates meant for making special-purpose large-diameter pipes which are used in