UrBC, Moscow, November 16, 2016. Ural Airlines started operating scheduled international flights from Zhukovsky International Airport and now flies passengers from there to Osh, the air carrier’s press service reports. Flight U6 2447 with 150 passengers on board departed for Kyrgyzstan’s second most important city strictly on schedule. Ural Airlines’ official representatives, Kyrgyzstan’s Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary to Russia, the airport’s management, and director of Manas International Airport Osh division all saw the company Airbus 320 off at Zhukovsky Airport.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) and HvalaCloud are currently launching free wireless Internet access at Yekaterinburg’s public places and on public transport, the bank’s press service reports. Several trams started the project off in early November: free Wi Fi is now available in ten trams on Routes 5,6,13,14,15,18,19,23,25, and 26. To get connected to the Internet, you only need to sign up for the service once using your phone number. Once this is done, your Internet connection will come on automatically at all the other trams

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2016. Sinara Transport Machines are now making TGM8KM locomotives at their Lyudinovsky Loco Plant (LTZ) to deliver these to Cuba under the terms of the contract the company signed with Cuban Railways, the company press service reports. The production took off with Cuban Ambassador to Russia Emilio Losada Garcia, Cuba’s Deputy Transport Minister Eduardo Dávila, and Sinara Transport Machines’ Director-General Evgeny Gritzenko’s help. Under the terms of the contract, the plant is to supply 60 TGM8KM locos to Cuba in 2017-2021. These are new-generation locos

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 16, 2016. The Strongest Kid Multiathlon Championship is by now compete in Chelyabinsk: this is a project coordinated by Russian Copper Company and Uralstrong Chelyabinsk Federation, the company press service reports. Hundreds of local boys and girls from twenty different schools took part in the competition; the semi-final round of the championship’s Kurchatovsky District round was held in UralStrong Center on November 12, with the best-performing kids from local schools getting to compete with one another. ‘The semi-finals were even more complicated than the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, November 15, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) came 4th in the All-Russian Labor Productivity & Russia’s Industrial Leaders 2016 Prize Top80 rating for metallurgical enterprises. This is currently the best result among all of the country’s large-size integrated metallurgical plants. MMK also came 41st in the rating of Russia’s Industrial Leaders 2016 Top100 rating, with labor productivity at 15.63m RUR per worker a year in 2015, the company’s press service reports. This productivity figures exceeded those for a year earlier by 18%.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 15, 2016. Rosatom’s SverdNIIkhimmash recently landed a contract for the supply of four reduction gear units to Kazakhstan-based Ulbinsky Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk. The units will come to replace the obsolete appliances at N 300B centrifugal units that SverdNIIkhimmash delivered to the plant more than three decades earlier. The reduction gear units are to arrive at the plant in December 2016; this was a 3.7m RUR deal. In fact, SverdNIIkhimmash has supplied quite a few centrifuges to plants in the former USSR and today’s Russia since 1983. ‘This is a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 15, 2016. Ural Airlines are offering more bonus points to its Wings Club members, the air carrier’s press service reports. Starting from November 10, 2016, loyalty cardholders in the airline’s Promo Group will get 5% of their flight fare transferred to their Wings Club account, passengers traveling Economy or Premium Economy will get a 10% bonus, and those traveling Business Light and Business will get a 15% bonus. The bonus points can be used to fully or partially cover your next ticket’s cost and get a personal price discount at once. Ural Airlines also made

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 15, 2016. Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems completed the overhaul given to its 500 kilowatt Kropachevo-Privalovskaya main which supplies electric power to end users in Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk Region. The overhaul involved the section of the main that crosses Moscow-Chelyabinsk Railways near Satka, Chelyabinsk Region, the company press service reports. Two new anchor pylons were installed to improve the mains’ workload capacity at the railway section, and a new ground wire and insulators came to replace their older, damaged counterparts. The renovations

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 15, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court declared the former owner of ZAO Uralfransavto Alexander Ivansky bankrupt; the debtor will now have to undergo bankruptcy proceedings, the court report states. The case against Ivansky was instituted by AO UniCrediBank last November; the plaintiff’s claims amounted to 290.7m RUR. A number of other creditors, including Bank Soyuz, Sberbank, Uralsib, Credit Europa Bank, and Reserve joined the case as plaintiffs in the months to follow; the exact amount of their claims hasn’t been stated by the court as of yet.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 15, 2016. The final round of the company Talent Show was held at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s I.V. Okunev Palace of Culture in Nizhniy Tagil. The grand-prix went to Olga Zyankina from the railcar truck department. ‘Both the audience and the judges’ panel were absolutely enchanted by Olga’s strong and vibrant voice,’ the company press service says. The selective rounds of the show began in September, with sixty gifted employees taking part. The contestants presented their musical, theater, and martial arts performances to the judges, and twenty-two

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. Ural Airlines are now offering discounts on tickets for their Cyprus and Kaliningrad flights, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘Ural Airlines are offering you a chance to have a great weekend at the best price. Winter is no time to lock oneself at home: you can always go to Cyprus for a new adventure, the 3d Cyprus Jazz Festival in Limassol on November 18, the wine-tasting season that opens at local wineries on November 19, and so on. Alternatively, you can shop for new pieces for your amber collection or listen to an organ concert in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon is going to connect over five hundred Internet users and celebrities in eight different cities as they engage in online public readings of Master & Margarita, the company press service reports. In Yekaterinburg, MegaFon has provided a special 100 Mb/sec mobile Internet access channel for the readings. The project will unite over five hundred selected Internet users, actors, reporters, politicians, public figures, sports players, performers, and other celebrities on YouTube on November 11-12, luring them into

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon reports companies based in the Mid-Urals tend to rely on cloud technologies more often than other user categories, the company press service reports. Starting this year, local companies have been using a hosted PBX six times more often than regular landline options. Based on MegaFon’s statistical data, every one in two new hosted PBX contracts landed within the Greater Urals’ ten federal constituencies get signed with the businesses based in Sverdlovsk Region. It is reported that Tyumen Region and Chelyabinsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. 28.2% out of seventy-one meat and dairy food samples tested in Sverdlovsk Region in the three quarters of the year either failed to meet technical regulations or turned out to be adulterated. Deputy Head of Rosselkhoznadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division Natalya Bannikova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg that nine out of twenty-eight companies that provided the samples were actually located outside Sverdlovsk Region. ‘100% of food samples provided by these nine businesses were adulterated, which means Sverdlovsk Region producers offer better

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. 43,000 kg of sanctioned foods had to be crushed and disposed of in Sverdlovsk Region in the nine months of the year (compared with 500 kg in the entire year 2015), Head of Rosselkhoznadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division Igor Tukhbatov said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. Mostly, these were apples, pears, and Cabbage imported from (mainly) Poland and Turkey. Also, some of the sanctioned items were first sent to Belarus and then imported to Russia as allegedly Byelorussian foods. ‘It turns out Belarus is no longer a land-locked country, judging by

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. Ural Vagon Zaiod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil hosted a workshop on Risk Management. The workshop was attended by 120 employees from the company’s various divisions, the corporation’s press service reports. The event was coordinated by the plant’s Risk Management & Internal Control Department with the goal of improving the plant managers’ and employees’ risk management skills. ‘We worked with four thirty-people teams, who were explained that risk prevention is much easier and considerably less resource-consuming than dealing with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) issued nearly two times as many bank guarantees in accordance with the Federal Act 44 FZ in the third quarter of the year as in the previous quarter, the bank’s press service reports. The bank also made getting these bank guarantees (44 FZ, 223 FZ, and 615 PP) easier, as applicants only need to subscribe to the bank’s Tender Express package once in order to be eligible to apply for guarantees within a set money limit as many times as they need to; the entire procedure only takes four hours.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. Locals approved of Southern Urals-based Mikheyevsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise expansion project in the course of public hearings in Chelyabinsk Region’s Varnensky and Kartalinsky Districts on November 8, Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. Varna and Kartaly town council representatives, heads of local medical and educational establishments, and Chelyabinsk Region locals - some three hundred people all in all - came to take part in the hearings. The hearings participants were shown project documentation for the expansion jobs

UrBC, Moscow, November 11, 2016. The Italian company Enel is planning to sell its Enel Russia assets (Reftinskaya, Sredneuralskaya, Nevinnomysskaya, and Konakovskaya Power Stations), Vedomosti reports. The company is currently negotiating the sale with the state-owned Inter RAO. Enel bought its share in Enel Russia (then known as OGK-5) for 85bn RUR (approximately 2.4bn EUR) in 2007. The Italian company was the first foreign business to invest in Russia’s energy industry. Based on MICEX quotations, the shareholding currently costs ten times less than at the time of purchase: 17.5bn RUR, or

UrBC, Moscow, November 11, 2016. The number of Russians traveling abroad this year is going to drop by about 20% compared with a year earlier, RIA Novosti refers to Head of Rostourism Oleg Safonov as saying. ‘Based on our experts’ estimates, our international traffic shrank by some 20%,’ Safonov said. ‘These are preliminary estimates, we have no data at hand at the moment, since with the way statistics works, the actual figures for the entire year will be available next July. We can see the general trend and analyze the current situation, however, and this is what forecast we can come up with