UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 24, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Public Housing & Construction Surveillance Department inspected 4,345,140 m2 of local housing in August 2015 to uncover 2,789 violations of the Housing Code regulations, the department’s press service reports. 1,717 violations had to do with failure to comply with the O&M requirements (including 9 instances of non-compliance with the gas facilities operation requirements, 841 cases of violating the information transparency legislature, 101 instances of failure to provide good quality housing services, 42 instances where

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 24, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Property Fund is putting four state-owned land allotments up to auction, their press service reports. The offer is to rent the said allotments to developers interested in low-rise housing construction. Lot 1: an allotment at 44A Krasnaya St in Gorny Shchit meant for 1,045m2 worth of prospective housing, with a twenty-year rental contract. Lot 2: an allotment in Naberezhnaya St in Severka meant for 908 m2 worth of prospective housing, with a twenty-year rental contract. Lot 3: an allotment at 25/2 Torfyanaya St in Palkinsky Torfyanik

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 24, 2015. The overall amount of past-due tax payments, fines, tax penalties, Uniform Social Tax payments, and payments to non-state, non-budgetary funds decreased by 942m RUR, or 2.9% in Sverdlovsk Region last month and thus amounted to 31,566m RUR on September 1, 2015, the local division of Russia's Federal Tax Service reports. This means that the amount of past-due tax payments went down by 516m RUR (2.3%) and came to 22,408m RUR all in all, while that of past-due fines and tax penalties went down by 426m RUR (4.5%) and came to 8,948m RUR altogether.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 24, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) is about to ship a set of five B14 bulldozers to Vietnam. According to Uralvagonzavod Corporation's press service, the machines have already been assembled, commissioned, and accepted by the customer, whose dealer and representative came to the plant specially for the purpose. The plant's Foreign Sales Director Vladimir Klein says the acceptance tests went through smoothly, so the tractors are now being partially disassembled and packed into shipping containers.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2015. Sverdlovsk Railways will cancel nine of its commuter trains for the winter, the company press service reports. Starting September 27, 2015, the following routes will be affected: Druzhinino-Mikhailovsky Zavod, Yekaterinburg-Revda, Yekaterinburg-Kamensk Uralsky, Yekaterinburg-Nizhniy Tagil, Nizhniy Tagil-Kushva, and Yekaterinburg-Polevskoy. The overall number of commuter trains will be cut by two for each direction. Starting September 28, 2015, trains from Serov to Boksity will no longer be available. Starting October 25, 2015, commuter trains from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2015. Head of Yekaterinburg Council Alexander Yakob and the Metropolitan of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, His Holiness Kirill signed an agreement on the prospective construction of twenty new Orthodox churches in the city on September 21, 2015. The city council reports the churches will be located on the outskirts of the city and in new residential districts. The Metropolitan explained that some of the churches will be dedicated to special events, such as one hundred years after the end of the First World War and the 400th anniversary of the House of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2015. The average price of a room in Yekaterinburg hotels went down by 14% in 2015 compared with a year earlier and thus came to 3,211 RUR per night, Oktogo.ru reports. Travelers stay for three days on average. Yekaterinburg, however, did not make it to the list of Russia’s ten cheapest cities to come to. Bryansk (2,343 RUR per hotel room on average) was No.1 in this rating, and Anapa (3,082 RUR) No.10. In the country on the whole, the average price of a night’s stay at a hotel decreased by 5%, down to 3,484 RUR, while that of a stay in a foreign hotel rose

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2015. ChTPZ Group directed over 25m RUR to cover costs of vacations for 3,200 of its employees working at Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant, the company press service reports. Under the company’s Corporate Vacation Program, the Group covers part of the travel and accommodation costs for its workers and invests in summer recreation infrastructure development. ‘We always invest quite a bit in our summer camps and company health resorts. Running our own recreational infrastructure means we can offer our employees some affordable,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2015. An upgraded 1000 ton-force strong press KB 8340 was newly installed at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant recently. The new piece of equipment is meant for stamping and bending of parts for railcars and special vehicles, the company press service reports. ‘The startup and commissioning jobs were completed by experts from a Barnaul-based plant. This upgrade was part of our import replacement program. The quality of this Russian machine is flawless, and now that the press control system has been improved, it offers much better value for money than

UrBC, Moscow, September 22, 2015. Russia’s foreign trade turnover shrank by 33.6% between January and July 2015 and amounted to $321.1bn. Rosstat reports export was down by 30.3% ($210.2bn), import by 39.2% (110.9bn). The balance of trade stood at $99.2bn. The decrease in imports was mainly due to such items as cars and other vehicles and equipment: 44.5% less of those got imported in Russia in the first half of the year ($44,957m in money terms). The decrease in exports had to do with shrinking supply of oil and other fossils (-37.3%, down to $136.23bn). The foreign trade figures changed

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2015. A power outage in Sysert left 8,000 people without any electric power supply for an hour. According to the Ministry of Emergencies’ Sverdlovsk Region division, the accident was reported at 3:55 PM. ‘The electric power supply was restored via backup grids at 5:00 PM. Our experts are currently looking into the causes of the accident,’ SverdlovEnergo reports.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2015. The average amount of a retail loan issued to Sverdlovsk Region-based borrowers dropped by 10% (from 181,600 RUR to 164,600 RUR) between August 2014 and August 2015, National Bureau of Credit History reports. As for the country’s average, this figure grew by 4.13% (from 167,300 RUR to 174,400 RUR). ‘Retail lending crisis reached its peak in January-March 2015, when banks virtually stopped the lending assembly line; the average loan amount went up by 45,600 RUR, or 26.1% compared with January 2015 (128,900 RUR),’ the Bureau says. Director-General

UrBC, Pervouralsk, September 22, 2015. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant/PNTZ (a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) produced its 1,000,000th ton of small-diameter electric welded pipes. The set of 8.0mmX0.7mm pipes was delivered to one of Minsk’s leading household goods manufacturers, the Group’s press service reports. The plant’s pipe welding department makes small-diameter welded pipes in many shapes and sizes. This is Russia’s leading facility for making small-diameter shock absorber pipes and refrigerator pipes for Indesit, Stinol, Atlant, and BEKO. The plant has also had its refrigerator pipe

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2015. MegaFon and Uralvagonzavod Corporation signed a cooperation agreement. Under the two parties’ three-year contract, the telecommunications provider will ensure good quality connection for the corporation’s employees through a single mobile and landline network at attractive rates, Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. MegaFon will keep offering the company its attractive pricing policy and benefits of a wide coverage area; additionally, a new task is to introduce the Fixed Mobile Conversion/Express Dial service. The employees’ mobile phone numbers

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2015. Corteo Fashion Mall was recently sold for 232m RUR, UrBC’s own source reports. ‘The auction went through, with Moscow-based Bonus Plus proclaimed the winning bidder. The purchase and sale agreement is expected to be signed soon,’ Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch reports. Corteo Fashion Mall was set up in 2005 as a premium-class shopping mall. The place had to be closed down seven years later, and the building was handed over to Sberbank to cover debts. The mall’s former proprietor, Kompaniya Stroymaster 3000, currently owes its creditors over 400m RUR.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2015. People living in Ural Federal District now owe their housing services suppliers 37.2bn RUR, 20% more than a year earlier. The increase might reach 30% by the end of the year, Sequoia Credit Consolidation reports. Ural Federal District is responsible for 18% of the country’s residents’ overall housing debs and comes second in terms of the debt amount after Central Federal District. For one, the unpaid hot water and heating bills make up over 50% of the entire debt amount, the company says. The rising debts have to do with the population’s shrinking

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Prime Minister Denis Pasler and Head of Yekaterinburg Council Alexander Yakob met to consider buying new tramways for the city’s public transport system. The city council reports the meeting was held on the premises of Uraltransmash, a tram manufacturer. The plant’s employees presented their modern trams and recent developments to the two officials. Tram 407, one of those presented at the meeting, is a tramway with a low-floor section in the middle. The section makes up 39% of the floor area. The tram is fit for 190 people, with 27

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2015. There were 6,045 workers on idle time in Sverdlovsk Region as of September 16, compared with 1,532 people on August 26, Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly Deputy Andrei Alshevskikh refers to Labor & Employment Department as stating. The deputy’s Facebook status describes the current situation in Sosva, where 200 people are going to find themselves out of jobs. ‘The terrifying rumors proved true: Correctional Facility 18, one of the town’s two employers, is to be closed down, so nearly all of the staff (201 people out of 219) will have to go in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation adopted the company’s labor safety and healthcare policy for 2015-2018. According to the company press service, the policy is targeted at protecting the employees’ lives and health and is based on the government’s labor protection policy, with industry-specific adjustments. The goals are to keep the protection of workers’ lives and health a priority, ensure safe working conditions in all the workplaces, take preventive steps to avoid accidents at work, and to maintain and improve the labor

UrBC, Moscow, September 18, 2015. More than 10,000 cyber crimes were registered in Russia in the first half of 2015, RIA Novosti refers to Head of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s K Department Alexei Moshkov as saying. ‘Over 10,000 crimes in the telecommunications and computer data sector were registered in Russia in the first six months of the year, which was 67% more than a year earlier,’ Moshkov said. According to Moshkov, 11,000 cyber crimes were detected in the course of the entire year 2014. The official pointed out that cyber criminals were using malware such as Trojans and other