UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 30, 2020. RosSet’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems (FGC UES) fully upgraded its set of 500-kV super-high-voltage type switches at Tarko-Sale, one of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District’s largest power substations. According to FGC UES Ural’s press service, three new Russian-made gas-insulated units got installed at the substation during the final stage of the renovation. This has ensured more reliable power supply to end users in Purovsky District, including Rosneft’s and Transneft’s member enterprises in the area. ‘The switches are the key components of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 30, 2020. Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant directed nearly RUB 340m to job safety and working condition improvements last year, the plant’s Information & PR Department reports. All of the plant’s employees have been provided with certified safety appliances. The plant relies on the latest PPE, work uniforms, and special appliances that help protect a person’s life and health when working. ‘Protecting the workers’ health and safety and improving working conditions are the plant’s management top priorities. Job safety is an indispensable component of safety

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 30, 2020. New Coalface 50-24 was launched at EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Coal Company’s Uskovskaya Mine this month; the estimated reserves of coking GZh coal come to 1,310,000,000 kg, the company’s press service says. Raspadskaya Coal Company’s representatives report all the job safety and industrial safety precautions were complied with during the preparatory jobs stage. ‘Ten new wells have been made safe through the draining-out of gases; a gas-draining module that removes the methane-air mixture at the speed of 70 m3-80 m3 an hour is also at work 24/7. Bridges

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 30, 2020. NEYVA Bank’s assets rose by 2.3% in January-March 2020, from RUB 8.4bn to RUB 8.6bn. According to the bank’s financial report, NEYVA Bank’s capital went up by 22.1% in the first quarter of 2020 and amounted to RUB 706m, while net profit amounted to RUB 61m. The amount of funds placed by private customers and businesses on deposits rose by 1.3%, from RUB 7.6bn to RUB 7.7bn. ‘During the first quarter of the year, the bank managed to both improve its key financial performance indicators and keep on expanding into the non-capital constituencies geographically;

UrBC, Nizhniy Tagil, April 30, 2020. EVRAZ Holding directed RUB 22.5 million to getting PPE for doctors in Nizhniy Tagil and Kachkanar. Hospitals received 150,000 pairs of disposable gloves, 10,000 kg of sanitizer, 85 pyrometers for contactless temperature-taking, 3000 pairs of protective goggles, and 3,000 disposable scrubs. Additionally, 500,000 masks have been provided as well. A quarter of all the items went to Kachkanar Central Clinic, the rest got distributed among the clinics and social welfare organizations in Nizhniy Tagil. ‘We are concerned for the doctors’ safety in times of the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 29, 2020. EVRAZ Holding has allocated more than RUB 300 million to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. ‘To prevent the spread of Covid-19, the company purchased PPE, contactless temperature-taking devices, disinfectants, and sanitizing/anti-bacterial equipment. All of EVRAZ employees involved in production process have been provided with the necessary protective appliances. Production departments, offices, cafes, shower/changing rooms, and company vehicles all get sanitized on a regular

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 29, 2020. The housing developer Brusnika keeps coordinating a series of online lectures for Yekaterinburg residents willing to learn something new while self-isolating. In the next two weeks, there will be lectures on today’s urban improvement trends, on the way street art impacts urban life, and on how you can tell a good master plan from a bad one. The lectures will be aired twice a week. For one, Head of Landscape Design at Brusnika Alexei Khrichenkov will deliver a lecture on Modern Approaches to Residential-Construction Landscape at 3PM (Moscow time) on April

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 29, 2020. The telecom company MegaFon now sells SIM cards that you can register online on your own at corner shops, the company’s press service reports. Once you have the SIM card, you can have it activated on your own on MegaFon App or gosuslugi.ru. In addition to large retail chains where you can buy these SIM cards, MegaFon has introduced 1,483 smaller outlets in 36 Russian cities and towns, including Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, and Chelyabinsk, where these cards are now available as well. The option of buying a SIM card very close to home is crucial in time of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 29, 2020. RosSet’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems (FGC UES) is going to start rebuilding two 220-kV mains on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg on May 1. The plan is to install two new metal supports (45.6m long) at the intersection of the mains with the new tram line connecting Yekaterinburg and Verkhnyaya Pyshma. According to FGC UES Ural’s press service, the project is expected to get completed by mid-May, with no inconvenience or power supply restrictions to end users. ‘The mains involved are the 220-kV Sredneuralskaya Power Station-Kalininskaya and

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 29, 2020. Director-General at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Pavel Shilyayev commented on the priority investment projects that the company has to focus on in time of Covid-related restrictions. According to MMK’s Information & PR Department, the current pandemic has meant the company had do look carefully into its plans, assess its possibilities, and decide on the priority minimum of retooling projects that must be completed in the nearest future. ‘The decision was made to focus on two large production facilities that were on the company’s investment

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2020. Sverdlovsk Region’s inflation rate is estimated to come to 2.5% a year in March 2020, the Bank of Russia’s Ural division’s report states. In Ural Federal District on the whole, the annual inflation rate was 2.5% as well. Kurgan Region (2.8%) did the worst, followed by Chelyabinsk Region (2.6%). In Tyumen Region, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region – Yugra, and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, the figures were, respectively, 2.2%, 2.1%, and 1.3%. ‘In Ural Federal District, the annual food inflation was 0.8% more pronounced in March 2020 than in February 2020 and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2020. Ural Airlines evacuated 199 Russian nationals back home from India (Flight U6 3740 Goa-Novosibirsk-Yekaterinburg) on Saturday, April 25. The departure time was 5:38 PM (local time) on April 24; the plane landed in Novosibirsk at 1:00 AM and arrived in Yekaterinburg at 2:50 AM on April 25. According to the air carrier’s press service, 137 passengers (including eight children) were headed for Novosibirsk and 62 people (including two children) were traveling to Yekaterinburg. All sanitary precautions were taken both at Tolmachevo Airport in Novosibirsk and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2020. NEYVA Bank’s management coordinated a live Q&A session to answer the most pressing finance-related questions and suggested its customers prepare for hard times in advance. Vice Chair of the Board at NEYVA Bank Pavel Yefremov said during the online webinar that the current global financial crisis would be different from all the other ones and would very likely be quite long. ‘I don’t believe we’ll see anything positive happening before the end of the year. Even the leading analysts cannot say at the moment how deep the global economic recession will be

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2020. 5,400,000+ kg of EVRAZ NTMK’s hot-rolled H-beams have been delivered to the construction site of Sberbank Technopark in Skolkovo, the company’s press service reports. The trading company EVRAZ Metall InProm handled the delivery. The plant made H-beams (strength grade: C355) with enhanced operational properties for the tech park’s primary facilities. The beam thickness is 20+ mm, which makes them particularly strong and durable.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 28, 2020. The staff of MMK-supported Metallurg Charity Foundation put together and handed over to Magnitogorsk social welfare centers 12,552 food packages meant for the local seniors, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Information & PR Department reports. The foundation representatives also collected 9,500 sets of PPE (gloves, masks, sanitizers, and soap) for the elderly living on their own and have already delivered these to their intended users. Lonely seniors in the 65+ age group who have no family living with or near them were the first group to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2020. NEYVA Bank and SOGLASIE VITA Insurance Company Limited came up with a new insurance offer: STOP VIRUS is meant to support Covid patients or the families of patients who died from the virus. According to the bank’s press service, the insurance policy is good for one year for insured events occurring within Russia only. The offer applies to any Russian national over eighteen. Under the terms of the policy, if the insured person dies from the novel coronavirus, the family will get up to RUB 1 million in compensation payments. ‘They talk a lot about the need

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2020. SKB-Bank now offers its customers a digital version of the bank card instead of the traditional plastic. According to the bank’s press service, you can apply for the digital card online. The new option is available to SKB-Bank’s customers on Universal subscription package. ‘You don’t have to actually visit the offline branch in order to get the card issued: the plastic gets replaced with the digital kind! Three clicks on the online banking app and your new card is ready to use. In just a few minutes, you get a modern digital card with all the regular

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 27, 2020. ChelPipe Group started working to upgrade its ITSM (IT Service Management) processes in order to reduce operational risks, get IT management systems automated, and improve the company’s interaction with internal clients, that is, the in-company information resource and service users. The project is expected to get completed by the end of the third quarter of 2020. The Group’s press service says they chose one of Russia’s leading consultants IT Expert as their partner for the project. The stages of the project implementation include the following: — auditing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2020. Yekaterinburg authorities keep working on making Akademicheskiy the city’s 8th administrative district. The locals are expected to vote on the name of the new district in May. The housing developer RSG-Akademicheskoye (KORTROS Group’s member enterprise) keeps putting up new living quarters in the area as well as building the social infrastructure facilities there. Such was the update made during an online session that KORTROS Group’s top managers took part in. The session was moderated by CFO at KORTROS Group Filipp Tretyakov; head of ARCHINFORM and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2020. Russia’s Central Bank sums up the incoming macroeconomic data as plenty of disinflationary factors and zero factors contributing to devaluation that results in inflation. The CBR also believes that people’s increased inflation expectations are only temporary, Vice Chair of the Board at NEYVA Bank Igor Koshmin claimed after the CBR decided to bring the key rate down to 5.5% p.a. on Friday. ‘The drop in the key rate also supports economic growth and makes it less costly for the Finance Ministry to borrow funds on internal markets. Given the growing need for