UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 6, 2015. The number of the unemployed came to 151,607 people in Sverdlovsk Region in June 2015, which was nearly 30,000 more than a year earlier, Sverdlovskstat reports. In fact, the figure dropped against the earlier months in April and May yet rose by as much as 700 people in June. Still, this number is still 2,500 people below the levels of January 2015 and 4,300 people below those of March 2015, when the overall number of the unemployed stood at the year’s high. The overall unemployment rate thus remains the same as in the previous two months and stands at 6.6%,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 6, 2015. The net profit Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant/KULZ (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) made in 2014 amounted to over 223m RUR, the corporation’s press service reports. It was decided in the course of the annual shareholder meeting that most of the money (190m RUR) would be directed to retooling and upgrading of the plant’s production facilities. Dividends will be paid out to preference shareholders. ‘The shareholders also elected the Board of Directors (the plant’s Director-General Anatoly Barabanov being one of the BOD members) and the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 6, 2015. The number of retail shops in Yekaterinburg went up by 233 new units in 2014, including 95 outlets in newly constructed buildings. According to the city council’s press service, Yekaterinburg’s trade sector is one of Russia’s most developed ones on the market. The city has more per capita shopping space (1,340 m2 per 1,000 people) than any other large Russian city, including Moscow and Saint Petersburg. ‘The Urals’ capital has a very extensive caf and restaurant network. There are 1,424 of them operating in Yekaterinburg at the moment, with overall room for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 6, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) checked retail prices of vital medications to discover that these increased by 8.9% compared with December 2014, the division head Igor Trofimov announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. He said prices went up by an average of 7.2% in the country overall and by 8.3% in Ural Federal District. ‘However, prices are now a bit lower than in April 2015; they dropped by 0.4% in Sverdlovsk Region and by 0.3% in Ural Federal District and remained more or less the same in the

UrBC, Moscow, July 3, 2015. Russia’s mortgage lending market declined by 40.9% (down to 371.279bn RUR) in January-May 2015 compared with January-May 2014; the figures apply to ruble mortgages, Central Bank reports. The overall volume of foreign currency mortgages dropped by 53.7%, down to 1.475bn RUR. As of June 1, the borrowers still had 3.473 trillion RUR left to pay, including 33.281bn RUR worth of past-due payments.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 3, 2015. The average amount of time it takes to sell an apartment on Yekaterinburg existing homes market rose from 3.5 to 6.5 months since the start of the year, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s analytical report states. According to Rosreyestr, the overall number of estate deals was 15% lower in the first half of 2015 than in the first half of 2014, while the market supply reached its all-time high: there are currently over 11,300 apartments offered for sale in the chamber’s database. This has already resulting in dropping housing prices: these have gone down by 2.8%

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 3, 2015. ChTPZ Group is celebrating Metallurgist’s Day with a motto that reads, ‘Five Years in White’, the company press service reports. The Group’s representatives explain that five years ago, the concept of White Metallurgy was presented to Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of Vysota 239 Department. Vysota 239 is now a recognized national brand. ‘Symbolically, exactly five new facilities have been set up within these five years, namely, Vysota 239, Iron Ozone 32 (a steel-smelting facility), OCTG Finishing Center, the Future of White Metallurgy Educational

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 3, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s warehouse facility Uraltrubostal delivered 40,000 kg of tubes and pipes for the construction of the fourth automobile bridge across the Yenissei River in Krasnoyarsk, the company press service reports. ‘Under the terms of the contract, Sibmost, the general contractor, received a set of 530-mm large diameter pipes and 89-mm and 180-mm weldless pipes. The difficulty of the task was in having to ship a range of different pipe types over a short period of time,’ the press service says. The whole structure will comprise a six-lane automobile bridge

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 3, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation/UVZ plans to make a presentation on prospective upgrades of its member enterprise ChTZ Uraltrac the key feature of its 500m2 stand at the Innoprom Exhibition this year. The company press service says the stand will give visitors a chance to see the company’s potential for making road-building and utility vehicles, pipe-laying tractors, and other machines. For one, the plant’s latest bulldozer B11.8000, assembled for the first time last year, will be on display. ‘This year’s slogan is Russian Vehicles for Russian Projects! If local

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 2, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region is currently the Russian constituency with the greatest number of residents who temporarily aren’t allowed to leave the country because their debts amount to more than 10,000 RUR, Sequoia Credit Consolidation reports. There are over 399,000 debtors in the area right now (8.9% of the local population). 30% of non-payers have overdue cash loan repayments; 17% haven’t repaid their credit card debts; 20% failed to make their car loan payments; 13% have POS loan debts; and 20% have failed to make their mortgage payments. The biggest average loan

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 2, 2015. Only 3% of Sverdlovsk Region households actually rate their housing facilities as ‘excellent’, Sverdlovskstat reports. 55% rated them as ‘fair’, 32% as ‘good’, and 10% as ‘poor’. As of late 2014, 85.5% of households were apartments and 14.4% were private houses, that is, 92.4% of urban households were apartments and 7.5% were private houses, whereas for the rural households, the ratio was 48.1% to 51.9%. 0.1% of households lived in communal apartments, and some 3% of households had a second home/property. Housing bills went up by 12.4% in 2014 and came, on

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 2, 2015. Yekaterinburg pawnshops have been getting 10% to 30% more customers over the last few months, the market players informed UrBC. ‘The current economic crisis caused the customer traffic to go up by 30%. People need money especially badly right now. Most often, they come when their wages haven’t been paid out to them in time or when their advance payments come to an end. These clients tend to pawn their gold jewellery, laptops, and mobile phones. Apple seems to be a particularly common brand lately: Apple products are not cheap, so some good money can be had

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 2, 2015. The latest issue if Technowars, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s company magazine, carried a feature on modern technologies that could turn a young recruit into a perfect soldier, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘One way for Homo Sapiens to keep evolving is through genetic interference. Are we in for a brave new world or for a dark dystopia? The article on creating a perfect human dwells upon modern DNA technologies and gives experts’ opinions on biotechnological research involving the human genome,’ the press service says. Two more articles (A Modern

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 2, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko was elected Honorary Citizen of Nizhniy Tagil, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘We considered a number of candidates for the title, and Oleg Sienko proved to have contributed the most to the city’s wellbeing. He coped with the gargantuan task of bringing his company’s production output back to its pre-recession level, when Uralvagonzavod was known as a strong and powerful enterprise. He gave people a chance to regain their trust in the company and let the city feel that the corporation is a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 1, 2015. To make sure all the reconstruction and relocation jobs at Severny Bus Station have been completed in time for the World Cup, the repair jobs must begin in 2016 at the latest, head of Yekaterinburg Council Alexander Yakob said while inspecting the city’s Zheleznodorozhny District. ‘Work must begin as soon as next year to make sure most of the jobs get done before the World Football Championship of 2018, when a great tourist inflow is to be expected,’ he said. Negotiations on the bus station have been in progress since 2013. The idea is to build a special

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 1, 2015. The terrorist act at one of the five-star hotels in Sousse, Tunisia, on June 26 is expected to have a negative impact on tourist traffic, feels director of Zima-Leto Tours Olga Gulyar. She says Tunisia-bound flights are operated from Yekaterinburg every ten days this year. The next flights are scheduled for June 29 and July 10, they haven’t been cancelled, and bookings are being made. However, not all of the plane tickets will actually get sold: a number of passengers have changed their minds about going to Tunisia within the last few days. ‘Tunisia used to

UrBC, Moscow, July 1, 2015. Residents of Yekaterinburg spend between 39% and 69% of their income at grocery stores, Nielsen analysts found out after surveying people in six Russian cities with the population of over 1m people, Izvestiya refers to their Nielsen Shopper Trends research as stating. In the six months of 2015, Russians found themselves having to spend more on food and to go grocery shopping more often. On average, 39% of Russian citizens spend a better part of their income of grocery items and everyday commodity goods. They tend to do grocery shopping at least ten times a month. A

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 1, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s warehouse facility Uraltrubostal delivered 10,000 kg of pipes to upgrade Polet Production Association which is developing a new generation of Angara carrier rockets, Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant’s press service reports. Now Polet is an Omsk-based subsidiary of Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. Under the terms of the order, the warehouse supplied 10,000 kg of hot-worked pipes with various diameters. These will be used to upgrade Polet’s production lines to help convert these lines to modern technologies, including digital

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 1, 2015. Six employees of Plant 9 (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) received state awards for their valuable contribution to the design, production, and testing of Msta-S, the 152-mm SP howitzer 2S19 M2, the company press service reports. The proposal to award the workers was placed with the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu by head of the Defense Procurement Department Mikhail Osyko. The For Labour Valour Medals were given to the plant’s Deputy Director-General Vladimir Galkin, Head of Production Pavel Zalozhkov, and designers and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities have detected 2,300 instances of housing code violations since the start of the year, their press service reports. Over 300 people had to face disciplinary liability; 28 unlawful enactments were protested against; 520 claims were placed with general jurisdiction courts; 700 warrants were issued; some 200 people had to face administrative liability and five criminal lawsuits were instituted following an investigation. ‘It has been determined that town council representatives repeatedly violate the housing