UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2017. The number of people living in Yekaterinburg now comes to over 1.5m, the city council’s website states. ‘According to the data collected by Municipal Population Register, our automatic information system, there were 1,501,000 people living in the city as of May 1, 2017,’ the website states. A month earlier, the figure stood at 1,498,542, which means the city’s population rose by more than 2,450 people in just one month. The male/female ratio has remained the same as last year, with men and women comprising 44% and 56% of Yekaterinburg’s residents,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Thumbelina will be performed on ice at Yekaterinburg’s Greenwich Mall on Friday, April 28. This is part of the annual Sale Night, Malyshev 73 Society’s press service reports. Professional ice-skaters are going to act out some fragments from Thumbelina. ‘To provide an interesting and unusual show for the event, we invited actors from Voskresenye Ice Theater to deliver a performance on the 20-m2 ice arena that visitors with children will enjoy watching,’ the press service says. The Sale Night’s program also covers a performance by Neizvestnye, a roller-skating

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. The number of tower cranes used at Yekaterinburg construction sites (excluding the frozen housing projects) came to 85 in the first quarter of the year, which is one crane more than in the last quarter of 2016 and five cranes less than one year previously, Ural Real Estate Chamber Analytical Department’s report states. 367,000 m2 worth of housing projects are frozen at the moment, which is almost three times as much as in the first quarter of 2016 (127,000 m2). The current new home market supply comes to around 17,000 apartments.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Yekaterinburg Customs’ foreign trade turnover came to $1.7bn in the first quarter of the year, the customs’ press service reports. Cargo turnover reached 1,400,000,000 kg, up 14% on one year previously, with imports amounting to 6.2% and exports to 93.8% of the overall weight. Compared with the first quarter of 2016, the number of cargo manifests rose by 21.3% and the number of importers/exporters went up by 13.2% (+14.5% on exporting countries and +17.8% on importing ones) in the first quarter of this year. Yekaterinburg Customs’ primary trade partners were

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. GIRAFFE, the manufacturer of cranes that are currently used in the construction of the World Football Championship 2018 facilities in Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, Kaliningrad, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Saransk, is now working together with MegaFon, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. A group of companies dealing in crane technologies has already had new cranes installed at twelve stadiums in different Russian cities. MegaFon improved mobile connection quality and increased the speed of Internet connection by three times to meet the crane

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 2, 2017. Four of Ural Airlines’ flight attendants took part in SkyService Forum 2017 in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor on April 26-27, the air carrier’s press service reports. The four women won bronze in Sale As A Service category. ‘SkyService is a grand international event in the field of on-board service. This year’s forum was streamed along an exhibition, a conference, a number of workshops, and some presentations. Flight attendants from twenty-one different companies could take part in training sessions and master classes by SKYSHOP brands’ representatives,’ the press

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s customers can now track the publicly available data on their contractors online with the help of Indicator, a new service that comes with the UBRD’s online banking package for businesses, the bank’s press service reports. Once you enter a company’s individual taxpayer’s number, accessible information gets automatically processed from all the government registers, the existing non-payers’ blacklists, arbitration courts’ protocols, and bankruptcy proceedings records. Indicator looks for facts that can

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Ural Airlines recently introduced a new flight from Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport to Tel Aviv and back, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘The solemn opening ceremony took place on April 26. The event was attended by the airport’s top officials, the airline representatives, and Head of Israel’s Tourism Ministry’s Russian Department Ksenia Kobyakova. The flight arrived from Tel Aviv at 5:50 PM; passengers traveling from Moscow to Tel Aviv were treated to a cake; a symbolic red ribbon was cut as well. A special greeting ceremony with a traditional water

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. EVRAZ Holding’s City of Friends-City of Ideas grant project will be held in as many as four cities — Nizhniy Tagil, Kachkanar, Novokuznetsk, and Mezhdurechensk — for the first time this year. EVRAZ Holding Ural’s PR Department reports the competition takes off in Nizhniy Tagil and Kachkanar on October 1 and in Novokuznetsk and Mezhdurechensk on May 10. The goal is to promote public initiatives and to support socially important projects. Anyone can submit their application to be considered by the contest judges. The projects must be aimed at improvements in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Four workers of ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant received state awards after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to this effect, the company press service reports. The solemn awarding ceremony took place in Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District’s office in Yekaterinburg. Roller Sergey Obsekov and hot-roll section foreman Gennady Ikrin from the plant’s pipe-rolling department were awarded the honorary titles of Russia’s Honored Metallurgist. Head of the plant’s electric pipe-welding

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2017. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev is going to visit Kachkanar on a business trip, the Governor’s Information Policy Department reports. The agenda of the visit covers tours of social infrastructure facilities, including School 2 and Stroitel Park, where a clean-up initiative will get coordinated that day. Governor will also come to EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK). Kuivashev expects to hold meetings with EVRAZ Vice President and head of the holding’s Ural division Maxim Andriasov and representatives of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 28, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) got its industrial and job safety management system audited for compliance with the OHSAS 18001:2007 international standard requirements once again, the company reports. The system was audited by AO Bureau Veritas Certification Rus, with experts coming to visit the plant’s production departments in accordance with the approved audit procedure. No discrepancies or problems were detected in the course of the inspection. MMK’s industrial and job safety management system therefore could get

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. The Ural business community keeps choosing text and multimedia messages as their preferred advertising channel. According to MegaFon analysts, the number of companies willing to book a text messaging option as one of their advertising tools has gone up by 1.5 times since the start of this year, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. Text messages have grown so popular because they help segment a company’s target audience based on their gender, age, or location - thanks to MegaFon.Target. In Russia on the whole, over 2,500 of MegaFon’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development, the general contractor for the reconstruction of Yekaterinburg stadium in time for the World Cup 2018, is now working on introducing air conditioning on the site. According to the Group’s press service, five large cooling appliances are being installed at a specially equipped location to provide air conditioning in all the rooms under the spectator stands. The cooling units are quite unique in their size and capacity (up to 2,630 kilowatts). This is how much a stadium needs to make sure all the air ducts (23,000 meters

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) went through with a 5bn RUR bond issue at Moscow Exchange on April 25, 2017. The bonds are to be in circulation for the next decade, TMK press service reports. There’s a biannual coupon yield repayment and a buy-out option in three years’ time. The coupon interest rate comes to 9.75% a year. The loan was underwritten by Alfa-Bank, OOO Aton, VTB Capital, and Sovkombank, with the issue coordinated through VTB Capital. ‘TMK keeps working on improving its debt book structure. The goal is to cut down on debt servicing costs and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. JP Morgan is currently coordinating a deal to find an investor for Yandex.Taxi, Kommersant refers to it sources within the investment community as stating. According to one of the sources, the company ‘is trying to find around $150 to $200m.’ Yandex.Taxi has held talks with a number of European and Asian investors, primarily with those already investing in online taxi services such as Softbank Capital and Tiger Global. ‘There is only a limited number of Russian investors who could write a check this big; Baring Vostok and the Russian Direct Investment Fund

UrBC, Moscow, April 27, 2017. Food imports to Russia shrank into a half of their amount from three years before, Interfax refers to Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev as telling reporters. ‘The amount of imported foods nearly halved in the last three years, dropping from $43bn down to $25bn,’ Tkachev said. According to the official, this is the most important outcome of import substitution. ‘This is a breakthrough and probably the most significant result,’ the Minister pointed out. ‘You can take a look at any hypermarket, any store, and any mom and pop shop: most of the foods come from

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 27, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will now offer larger subsidies to workers needing a down payment for their home; the figure will now come to 250,000 RUR, the company reports. The subsidies get provided to Help for MMK Young Families Program participants and come in combination with projects aimed at developing the young workers’ creativity and professional skills. The program was introduced in 2007 and means that several young workers with families who get selected in the course of professional skills contests and science

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod got its quality management system certified for compliance with the international ISO 9001: 2008 standard, the company press service reports. The certificate was issued by Russian Register, an international certification body that is member of the IQNet Association. The association comprises members from fifty-five different countries. ‘Ural Vagon Zavod received the IQNet certificate that proves the plant’s quality management system meets the ISO 9001: 2008 requirements. The advantage of this particular paper lies in the fact that it is

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The number of workers under forty-five employed by Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) rose by 6% recently and came to nearly 40% as a result, the company press service reports. This increase covers a 4% rise in the number of blue-collar workers in this age group and a 9% rise in the number of managers aged 35 to 45. ‘Not only is our team not getting older, but the plant is gradually getting more of new employees who are our future. This is an impressive achievement at the time when companies facing increasingly more middle-aged