UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s city councils were unable to pay their registered unemployed their allowance on time this month, Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department confirmed to UrBC. ‘The payments really were delayed, as the federal funds did not get transferred here in time. The money came yesterday, so the problem will be solved in the very near future. These temporary setbacks occurred in virtually every city and town in the constituency,’ the Department’s press secretary Olga Rudeva said. As of January 20, there are 33,447 people registered at

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. It is reported preliminarily that housing sales decreased by 25% to 27% in Sverdlovsk Region last year, the constituency’s Construction & Infrastructure Development Minister Sergei Bidonko said at a press conference. ‘As the customers’ paying capacity deteriorated, sales dropped. Given last year’s economic circumstances, the initial decline was estimated at 40% but turned out to be less than this by the end of the year,’ he said. In the meantime, housing prices keep going down: Bidonko said in some cased the decrease reached 12% to 17%. Still, this

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. 2,180 people working for Sverdlovsk Region-based employers will lose their jobs within the next three months, the constituency’s Legislative Assembly deputy Andrei Alshevskikh refers to the local employment centers as stating. A 15-people school cafeteria in Verkhnyaya Salda is closing down; people are being made redundant at Nizhniy Tagil Railcar Depot (356 workers have already been laid off and 152 will have to follow suit); OOO Aist, registered at the foot of Mount Dolgaya in Nizhniy Tagil, is letting 94 people go. A 16-people children’s club in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2016. A new cast-cooling unit underwent start-up and commissioning procedures and was launched at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s Foundry Department 1 recently. The unit relies on the new technology where the castings and the sand blend are shaken out and cooled simultaneously. The company press service reports the unit was made right at the plant’s production departments and will be used for cooling the casting stuffs that need to be filtered from sand. ‘This equipment took six months to make. We relied on the experience of using the previous make

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s state construction surveillance authorities inspected 258 buildings under (re)construction and detected 1,562 instances of non-compliance with the existing urban development legislation, their press service reports. In 57% of cases (namely, 891 cases), problems consisted in violating the obligatory technical requirements and project documentation provisos; in 23% of cases (366), developers failed to comply with the safety regulations or process organization requirements; in 18% of cases (281), companies failed to ensure construction

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Rental homes grew, on average, 11% cheaper in the Urals last year, N1. RU reports after looking at over 80,000 housing ads for places in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen. ‘Rental prices declined the most in Perm and remained nearly the same as in the previous year in Chelyabinsk. Yekaterinburg market experienced the third biggest price decrease,’ the company reports. The average monthly rent amount dropped by 11% and came to 18,600 RUR in Yekaterinburg (against 21,000 RUR in 2014). This was also the case in most large Ural cities. Prices

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2106. Pipe Metallurgical Company’s (TMK) Russian division now also comprises a new enterprise cluster TMK-Central Asia (Astana-based TMK-Kazakhstan and Uralsk-based TMK-Kaztrubprom), TMK PR Department reports. The introduction of a new cluster will mean TMK could use its potential on Kazakhstan’s and the CIS pipe market more efficiently. TMK-Central Asia will be run by the company’s Business Development Director in the Republic of Kazakhstan Vladimir Kolesnikov, who came into office on January 18, 2016. Kolesnikov has nineteen years’ experience on the Central

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant/PNTZ will pay a compensation to the family of their strapper Alexander Popov, who had a production accident and later passed away in hospital. The company press service reports their Collective Agreement ensures an incidental allowance of 100,000 RUR for every family member (children, wife, and mother) and 5,000 RUR a year for every child under 18 until they come of age. ‘The company management also decided to pay the family the deceased worker’s average monthly wage until the youngest child is eighteen. Popov’s co-workers are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2016. Russian Maritime Register recently issued safety acceptance certificates for Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s KTsKh.PKM-25/0.4 composite body containers. According to the company press service, this means the tank containers can now be used for freight forwarding by rail, car, and sea. The tank container is meant for transportation and storage of a wide range of chemicals; the body made of composite materials weighs 4,500 kg (which is lighter than the earlier versions) and has an increased freight capacity of 31,500 kg. Besides, these composite materials

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. 2,467 people living in Sverdlovsk Region were officially warned that their driver’s licenses could get annulled if they have more than 10,000 RUR worth of debts, the local division of Russia’s Federal Service of Court Officers reports. ‘First court warrants limiting their driving rights have already been given to twenty-two debtors; fourteen of them owe money in terms of unpaid child support (2.256m RUR altogether) and eight have failed to pay damages for the infliction of emotional distress (755,000 RUR altogether). The amendments to the Federal

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Over 1,600 illegal immigrants got deported by Sverdlovsk Region’s court officers last year; this figure exceeds that for a year earlier by 36%. It is reported most of the deported subjects come from Tajikistan (648 people), Uzbekistan (595 people), and Kyrgyzstan (309 people); the rest come from Azerbaijan (24 people), Armenia (15 people), China (25 people), and Kazakhstan (11 people) and Moldavia, Georgia, Vietnam, Turkey, Byelorussia, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Serbia, and Ukraine. ‘There were no emergencies in the process of transferring the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Up to 30% of electric power supplied to Sverdlovsk Region-based end users do not meet the existing quality requirements, Head of Rosstandart’s local division Svetlana Mikheyeva announced at a press conference. Under the current GOST 13109-97 standard, the electric power supply must stay within certain frequency and voltage range as well as within given (un)sinusoidality and voltage (un)balance parameters and show control over its voltage impulse and overload. ‘End users complain about the poor quality electric power supply a lot, while Sverdlovsk Region

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s businesses and organizations owed their employees 8.378m RUR in delayed wages and salaries as of January 1, 2016, Sverdlovskstat reports. This was 19.9% more than one month earlier. Four companies are reported to provide these data to Sverdlovskstat all in all.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2016. The TV channel Techno24 recently aired another episode of its Polygon Show on Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s upgraded T 72B3 tanks. The company press service reports the shooting took place at Omsktransmash production premises, at a shooting range in Svetly, and at the corporation’s own testing site. ‘While in Omsk, the camera crew had time to learn about the upgrade process in all the detail and even to contribute to it. People at the plant were eager to answer their questions, share their experience, and help the show presenter master the jobs of a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s debt reached 66.5bn RUR on January 1, 2016, the local Cabinet’s official website states. The figure came to 48.2bn RUR as recently as on October 1, 2106, which means the debt amount went up by over 18bn RUR in the last quarter of 2015. This year’s budget sets the upper limit for the administration of internal state debt at 5.5bn RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. The number of visitors at Sverdlovsk Region’s ski resorts was considerably less impressive during the New Year break this year than a year earlier because of cold weather, Gora Listvennaya Ski Resort informs UrBC. ‘We grew more popular after Turkey and Egypt became unavailable, but the outside temperature was too low for skiing between January 2 and January 7, so we only had 350 to 500 coming in every day instead of the usual 1,200 to 1,300. It was only on January 9-10 that the good weather set in and the number of customers rose back to normal,’ the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Yekaterinburg Council issued 891 construction permits for 3.051m m2 worth of buildings last year. The city council’s press service reports permits were issued for 133 apartment buildings (1.5m m2), 298 low-rise buildings and private houses (121,000 m2), and 460 non-residential buildings (1.43m m2). In 2014, 765 permits for 2.873m m2 worth of buildings got issued by the council. Also, 189 apartment buildings (3.2m m2 all in all) are currently under construction.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Yekaterinburg proved one of this year’s top ten tourist places according to a rating Travel.ru created using the hotel booking data for January 11-December 31, 2016. Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Perm, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Saratov also made it to this list of Russia’s most popular cities. This year, travelers have booked an average of 3.5 nights (3,700 RUR per night) in Yekaterinburg. The price of a hotel stay in other cities comes to 2,800 RUR per night in Saint Petersburg, 3,400 RUR in Moscow, and 5,700 RUR in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2016. Burevestnik Central Scientific Research Institute (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) introduced a 1% quota for workers under eighteen (including orphans and children experiencing socioeconomic difficulties) in accordance with Nizhniy Novgorod Region’s legislation. The company press service reports a sixteen-year-old was hired as an assistant at the Power Equipment Department on January 12, 2106. ‘Our team welcomed the new employee to the company in the course of a special ceremony. Under the Federal Children’s Rights Protection Act, he

January 18, 2016. Family members of 33% of respondents lost their jobs in the last months of 2015, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center says. The unemployment problem is estimated to be at -28 points in Russia on the whole, while the Russians’ job-finding potential fluctuated between 43 and 50 points throughout the year and came to 49 points last December. It is reported that every one if five people (22%) is positive they will be able to find a similar job easily if they get fired. Every one if four respondents (25%) believes they will be able to find a job like their current one