UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 4, 2015. A new clinic (part of the Bud Zdorov! Chain) for employees of Sinara Pipe Plant (a member enterprise of Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK) and all the other town locals opened in Kamensk Uralsky on December 2, TMK press service reports. The opening ceremony was attended by Sverdlovsk Region Healthcare Minister Arkadiy Belyavskiy, TMK Deputy Director-General for Organizational Development Nikolai Kolbin, Deputy Director-General of Ingosstrakh Tatiana Kaigorodova, Sinara Pipe Plant Managing Director Vyacheslav Popkov, and the chain’s DG Vyacheslav Novikov.

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, December 4, 2015. ChTPZ Group shareholder and BOD Chairman, Deputy of Chelyabinsk Region Legislative Assembly Alexander Fedorov won the Delovoy Kvartal magazine’s Man of The Year Award for the second time in a row. The solemn awarding ceremony took place at the Congress & Exhibition Hall recently. The prize, indicative of Fedorov’s success in large-scale improvements, of efficiency of his projects, and of his contribution to the company, the pipe-manufacturing industry, and Chelyabinsk Region’s development, was awarded by a group of experts comprising business community

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, Deccember 4, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s corporate training program the Future of White Metallurgy was awarded the first prize in the blue-collar jobs training contest by the Russian Education & Science Ministry and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. The prize was given to the company representatives at the 10th International Global Education 2015 Congress & Exhibition, the company press service reports. ‘We trained over 400 highly skilled workers, each of whom now has three to four kinds of qualifications, in the last four years. Most of the program alumni find jobs,

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, December 3, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has been selling increasingly more products to international car manufacturers with factories in Russia. The company sales to foreign carmakers quadrupled in 2015 compared with the year 2014. MMK delivered 405,000,000 kg of galvanized and cold-rolled products to carmakers last year and 278,000,000 kg in the first eight months of 2015. Now the automobile-making industry is the company’s top priority market, so MMK’s goal is to become the market leader. MMK intends to become the No.1 supplier for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 3, 2015. The average amount of a mortgage loan went down in Sverdlovsk Region this year, Manager of VTB24 Ural Branch Sergei Kulpin said at a press conference. ‘Mortgages used to amount to 2m RUR on average last year, now the figure is down to 1.7m RUR. Borrowers appear to have a more realistic assessment of their financial capacity. Also, prices dropped by 7% on average on both existing and new homes markets, which affected the loan amount as well,’ Kulpin said. He said VTB24 had issued 1,037 mortgage loans (with 1.9bn RUR worth of state-provided funding)

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 3, 2015. Prices went down by 6.6% on Yekaterinburg existing homes market in the eleven months of 2015, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. ‘The average per-square-meter price gradually declines by about 0.2% a week. As of November 30, 2015, this came to 71,159 RUR,’ the Chamber’s analysts say. There are currently 11,600 apartments and over 2,000 rooms in communal apartments for sale in Ural Real Estate Chamber’s database. It still takes quite a while (4.5 to 5.5 months or longer) to make a sale. In terms of location, prices declined least noticeably (-0.4% on the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 3, 2015. Snezhnost, ChTPZ Group’s 13th annual charity festival for children, opens in Chelyabinsk on December 4 with Konstantin Raikin Higher Acting School’s Let’s Play Cartoons, the company press service reports. The Group has run this charity festival for socially vulnerable children since 2003. This year, Snezhnost is also supported by the Russian Culture Ministry. Over 7,500 children from South Ural cities will be able to see the country’s best plays at Chelyabinsk’s major theaters. Children of the Group’s employees are traditionally invited, as well as local

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 3, 2015. Every year, Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant funds its workers and their families’ stays at health resorts and sanatoriums as part of its CSR projects. This year, for example, 5,257 workers and their children will have used this offer by the end of the year, the company press service reports. The main goal is to prevent occupational illnesses in workers employed at hazardous production departments. This year, 1,400 such employees were sent to Pine Mountains Resort, 186 people went to Ust-Kachka Resort, and 274 people went to Malachite Resort.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 3, 2015. Uraltransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) got its low-floor tram bogie patented, the corporation’s press service reports. The bogie was designed by the plant’s Director-General Alexei Nosov, Senior Civilian Goods Designer Sergei Soloviev, and Senior Designer Engineer Sergei Chernykh. The product was developed for Russia’s first fully low-floor tram. The wheels are mounted on independent axles and all the parts pertaining to the middle section are on the outer surfaces, which makes room for the low floor in the central section of

UrBC, Moscow, December 2, 2015. 1.2m new cars were sold on the Russian market between January and October 2015, which was 34% less than a year earlier, Avtostat reports. Russian customers spent 1.46m trillion RUR on new automobiles this year so far (down 21% on the ten months of 2014), whereas the price of a car went up by 19.7% and came to 1.181m RUR on average. The price of foreign cars rose by 21.3% up to 1.343m RUR on average, that of Russian cars increased less noticeably, by 17.3%, and came to 504,000 RUR on average. Avtostat Director Sergei Tselikov believes Russian customers will have

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 2, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region only came 12th on the list of Russian constituencies with the greatest number of press kiosks, the Association of Russia’s Printed Press Distributors’ press service reports. The association reports there is one such kiosk per 3,836 people in the area, as opposed to the required one kiosk per every 2,500 people. Kaliningrad Region was at the top of the rating (one kiosk per 2,197 people), followed by Chelyabinsk Region (one kiosk per 2,489 people) and Mari El (one kiosk per 2,696 people). Things look bleakest in Chechnya, Altai, Adygeia,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 2, 2015. The number of jobs on Yekaterinburg labor market went up by 1% in November 2015, HeadHunter Ural reports. Most job openings are in the Housekeeping, Science & Education, Art & Media, and Tourism, Hotels, Restaurants segments. ‘The number of vacancies went up in most professional areas with the exception of Insurance (-27%), Sports Clubs & Fitness (-27%), and Accounting (-24%),’ says HeadHunter Ural’s head of press department Maria Zabotina. As for job-seekers, the number of CVs submitted into the system increased by 40% in November compared

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 2, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region authorities are going to sell 2.7bn RUR worth of state-run enterprises’ shares by auction next year, Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Minister Alexei Pyankov said at a Legislative Assembly meeting. According to Pyankov, the constituency expects these enterprises to bring 3.7bn RUR in revenues. 2.7bn RUR are to result from selling shares of companies such as Pervouralsk and Nizhniy Tagil printing offices, Sverdlovsk Poultry Factory, and Kuryi Health Resort. Sverdlovsk Region Government actually preferred to keep its stake in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 2, 2015. 135 customers called consumer rights hotlines in the four weeks after all air travel to Egypt was banned with queries on the Egyptian tours they had booked, Rospotrebnadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. Experts from Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene & Epidemiology Center helped their clients file three court claims relating to reimbursement of their cancelled trips and three complaints addressed to travel agents. The same kind of advice is now available for customers who booked their trips to Turkey.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 1, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Volchansky subsidiary won the A.K. Gastev Productivity Leader Contest as the Best Lean Investment Project and as the Best Lean Innovative Solutions. According to the corporation’s press service, its subsidiary won the first award because of its great economic efficiency indicators (resulting from the introduction of Lean Production System) and the second one for the development of the plant which happens to be the town’s primary employer and runs plenty of social welfare programs as well as for launching new, high quality

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 1, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Youth Club was given a thank-you letter from Sverdlovsk Region Youth Parliament for supporting youth self-government, helping to create Nizhniy Tagil Youth Duma, and proactive implementation of government’s youth policies, the corporation’s press service reports. Oleg Belousov from Mechanical Assembly Department and Olga Antipova from the Metallurgical Department represented the Club in Parliament’s second calling. Belousov chaired the Public Safety Committee and coordinated tens of events aimed at public safety

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 1, 2015. The so-called anti-Turkish sanctions are going to affect Sverdlovsk Region more badly than any other constituency in Ural Federal District, Ural Customs indicate. According to their press service, Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, and Tyumen Region were responsible, respectively, for 48%, 36%, and 14% of Russian-Turkish trade turnover. ‘Our trade with Turkey made up 4% of Ural Federal District’s overall trade turnover and amounted to $963.9m this year. Remarkably, more goods were exported to Turkey (5% of overall exports) than were imported to the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 1, 2015. Prices on Yekaterinburg existing homes market went down by 0.8% in the last four weeks and came to 71,260 RUR per m2 on average, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Prices declined most in the city’s fourth most expensive districts, where the price decreased by 0.9%, down to 61,138 RUR per m2 on average. In the third priciest areas, prices went down by 0.7% to 65,609 RUR per m2 on average. As for the second most expensive and the cheapest locations, prices decreased by 0.6% in both cases, down to 75,913 RUR per m2 and 52,701 RUR per m2 on average. The

Russia, Moscow, December 1, 2105. Russia decided not to offer Turkish citizens a visa-free entry starting from January 1, 2016, TASS refers to Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov as announcing after his meeting with Syria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Walid Muallem. ‘I’d like to stress once again that Russia is very, very concerned with the escalation of terrorist threats in the Republic of Turkey. This bears direct effect upon Russia’s and Russians’ safety. Turkey is currently used as a transfer point from which insurgents head in different directions,’ Lavrov said. ‘Much to our regret, the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. Ural Federal District’s industrial production index dropped by 2% in January-September 2015 compared with January-September 2014, Sverdlovskstat reports. The IPI decreased by 2.5% in the fossil fuels and minerals production sector and by 1.5% in the sector for production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water. The only sector to have a growing IPI (+0.6%) was the processing industry. Ural Federal District-based companies’ overall turnover came to 13.3 trillion RUR in January-September 2015, which exceeded the figures for a year