UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 13, 2016. Ural Customs’ officers confiscated over 126,000 counterfeit items at various customs points, Koltsovo Airport Customs’ press service reports. The damage to copyright holders and trademark owners is estimated at more than 20m RUR. The withdrawals resulted in sixty-five administrative lawsuits, fifteen criminal lawsuits (with charges based on Article 180 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (illegal use of identifications means for a product/service) and Article 146 (copyright infringement)). Most of the counterfeit items pertain to alcohol drinks (77,000

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 12, 2016. Ural Airlines is going to present its services at the 7th International Innoprom 2016 Exhibition that opens in Yekaterinburg today, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘This year, the company’s focus is on China, given especially that the Russian-Chinese Expo Exhibition is also being held at the moment,’ the press service says. The airline keeps working to introduce more China-bound flights (some 30% of all the international flights operated by the company). Ural Airlines offer flights from Yekaterinburg and Saint Petersburg to Beijing and from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 12, 2016. SKB-Bank is taking part in the Innoprom 2016 Exhibition, the bank’s press service reports. The joint stand by the bank and its shareholder Sinara Group is located in Pavilion 1. This year’s theme has been inspired by the World Cup 2018 that will be held in Yekaterinburg, which is why you can see a small-sized model of renovated Central Stadium, a freestyle football performance, and loan officers in business suits which stand in contrast to their football fan face paint. SKB-Bank will also invite visitors to the exhibition to get acquainted with their new

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 12, 2016. Metcombank and Multiservice Payment System are going to issue Round Customs Cards for companies dealing in import/export transactions. According to the bank’s press service, a customs card is meant for making customs payments easier all throughout Russia; the card allows a company to pay the fees and duties right at the customs point without having to worry about making money transfers in advance. The cardholder can always go to My Account to get access to most services online. Payments can lso be made in the process of online customs filing. ‘Metcombank

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 12, 2016. Four workers of EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) won L.Ya. Mekhontsev and I.I. Polzunov Prizes for their innovations and improvement proposals, the company press service reports. Chair of the Russian Inventors’ Society Sverdlovsk Region division Alexei Okunev presented the society’s honorary certificates to the prize-winners. Head of converter shop Oleg Dolmatov and head of vanadium slag production department Andrei Belokurov also received the Polzunov Prize, while steel caster Ildar Gilmanov and foreman from beam rolling

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 12, 2016. The boxing match between Russia’s Sergey Kovalev and Malavi’s Isaac Chilemba will be broadcast in Yekaterinburg on a gigantic 60-m2 screen, Russian Copper Company (the event’s general sponsor) reports. The game between the IBF/WBA/WBO champion Sergey Kovalev and Isaac Chilemba, who is among the world’s top ten boxers in his weight category, is scheduled for July 11, the opening day of the International Innoprom Exhibition. ‘Tickets for the show have been nearly all sold by now. To make sure the locals can still support the Urals’ native Sergey Kovalev,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 11, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil and Ural State Economic University signed a cooperation agreement to ensure continuous educational development, the company press service reports. The plant’s Managing Director Vladimir Roshchupkin and USEU Rector Yakov Silin both signed the document and agreed to work together on training high-skilled professionals. This is the first stage in the two parties’ cooperation strategy. The goal is to ensure personnel training, scientific research, and social/charity projects. This will be useful for the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 11, 2016. The team of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Kamensk-Uralsky Foundry Plant (KULZ) won in a sport tourism contest coordinated by Sverdlovsk Region Aviation Industry Trade Union, the company press service reports. This year, the competitions were held at the confluence of the River Iset and the River Kamyshenka near Kamensk-Uralsky and were organized by KULZ trade union. The KULZ team competed against Yekaterinburg-based teams from Kalinin Machine-Building Plant, Ural Instrument-Making Plant, and Start Scientific & Production Enterprise. The contestants had

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 11, 2016. Two workers of EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) received state awards, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. The awarding ceremony took place at the Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh’s official residence. Head of a production department Vadim Teplov and repair technician from Metallurgical Equipment Repair Department 3 Vladimir Lapshin were awarded their For Merit to the Fatherland Medals (Class II). Both employees have worked at the plant for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 11, 2016. Sinara Development (a member enterprise of Sinara Group) is now selling new apartments in the condo Solnechny in Yekaterinburg’s Chkalovsky District, the Group’s press service reports. The developer obtained the construction permit on June 29, 2016. The apartment buildings are expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2018 at the latest. ‘The condominium will comprise eleven buildings six to eleven storeys tall with a shared backyard. There will be entrances facing both the backyard and the pedestrian area outside, to protect the inner space from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon doubled the speed of the mobile Internet connection it offers to customers and introduced HD Voice technology to improve sound quality in time for the Innoprom 2016 Exhibition in Yekaterinburg to make up for the increased amount of conversations and Internet traffic, the company press service reports. According to MegaFon, the workload their network has to handle at Innoprom this year has gone up by 11 times since the first such exhibition was coordinated five years ago. It has been calculated that, on average, every

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation is going to present its new, 23,000-kg crawler excavator EO-41211A at the Innoprom 2016 Exhibition. According to the company press service, the vehicle was designed at the corporation’s member enterprise Ural Transport Machine-Building Design Office by the same team who developed the Armata platform. ‘Given the gradual decrease in the amount of defense procurement-related orders, our strategy is to focus on making such vehicles and on providing after-sales services at our armored vehicle repair plants,’ the press service says.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. 300 workers of Kamensk-Uralsky Foundry Plant/KULZ (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) took part in the company-organized amateur Olympics, the company press service reports. ‘A track-and-field relay race, standing jumps, grenade throwing, shot put, tug-of-war, and football games - there is something to choose from for everyone. Players can compete in three age groups: under 35, under 50, and 50+. Every group has its winners, but the younger contestants naturally prove the strongest. For one, the engineer from the Senior Metallurgist’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development completed all the certification procedures and has recently been deemed one of MasterCard’s Principal Members, the bank’s press service reports. The new status allows the bank to issue and process MasterCards and work directly with the system rather than through a Russian sponsor bank. UBRD Bank Card Management Director Alexei Piskunov says this brings the bank to an entirely new level. ‘The new status will ensure a much better quality of service as well as offer the bank and its customers new opportunities

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. 40% (or more) of office space in Yekaterinburg’s recently opened business centers remains unrented, Ural-Hermes reports. The overall amount of available office space went up by 2% to 3% on average in the first half of the year. As of July 1, 2016, only 81%, 84%, and 78% of, respectively, Class A, Class B+, and Class B office buildings’ capacity were used. ‘Given the deteriorating economic circumstances and the tenant companies’ decreased paying capacity, many businesses are trying to cut down on their rental costs, usually by moving to smaller and worse

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 8, 2016. The amount of ferrous metal shipments handled by Sverdlovsk Railways in the first half of 2016 decreased by 8.8%, down to 4,800,000,000 kg, the company press service reports. Iron and manganese ore shipments also went down by 5.2%, down to 6,200,000,000 kg, chemical and mineral fertilizer shipments declined by 9.4%, down to 6,400,000,000 kg, industrial commodities and molding material shipments dropped by 8.6%, down to 4,400,000,000 kg, and cement, lumber, and chemicals shipments dropped by 2.1% (down to 1,200,000,000 kg), 6.2% (down to 1,100,000,000 kg),

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 7, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s UVZSHOP.RU is now offering tank helmets for sale, the company press service reports. Helmets from the company collection are made at the same enterprise which manufactures earphone-headsets for the Russian Armed Forces. The only difference between the actual make and the shop article is that the one at UVZSHOP.RU doesn’t have the special laryngophone-telephone headset options that are only useful in combat. The helmet headsets are used by the crew of combat and special-purpose vehicles. The piece protects the wearer from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 7, 2016. EVRAZ Holding’s Uskovskaya Mine is now working on a new long face unit 50-10 with the estimated deposit of over 1,800,000,000 kg of valuable GZh coal, EVRAZ Holding Siberia’s press office reports. Prior to the launch of the long face, a number of assembly jobs, capital mining operations, and drivage jobs had to be carried out. More than 3.5 km of mine opening had to be cleared up. Also, all the gas was drained from the working seam, with additional surface gas drainage ensured by the use of a degasification station in the process. The long face has been

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 7, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) started working with the Mir National Payment System on July 1, the bank’s press service reports. Mir cardholders can already use their cards to pay for their shopping at malls fitted with UBRD’s POS terminals, take out cash at the bank’s ATMs, and get the needed cash from the bank’s tellers. The ATMs also have a cash-in option and allow the cardholder to check their account balance and make payments and card-to-card transfers. ‘Accepting Mir cards is the first, and very important, stage from which

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 7, 2016. Workers of ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant are going to celebrate Metallurgist’s Day on July 15-16, the company press service reports. The two plants are going to award their best employees with certificates and thank-you letters from the company and the industry ministries. ‘Special shows and concerts have also been prepared for the plants’ long-service employees at our Culture Palaces’ the press service says. Chelyabinsk and Pervouralsk will both host sports competition and exhibition games between the