May 6, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s number of the unemployed exceeds that of available jobs by 3,000. In early April, the number was 1,600. Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department’s website states the number of vacancies advertised by employers came to 29,774 on April 30, while the number of the unemployed came to 32,869. The official unemployment rate stood at 1.44%. In Yekaterinburg, there are currently 16,768 job opening, while the number of the unemployed comes to 5,512. The official unemployment rate comes to 0.76%. In Nizhniy Tagil, there are 1,464 job openings and 1,962 people

May 6, 2015. The prices of goods and services in Sverdlovsk Region went up by 0.4% in April 2015 and by 8.5% compared with the start of the year, Sverdlovskstat reports. Food items grew 0.1% and 12.5% more expensive, respectively, while alcohol drinks grew 1.5% and 6.4% costlier, respectively. The prices of non-food items rose by 0.9% in April 2015 and by 8.2% compared with the beginning of the year, while those of services remained the same in April as in the previous month yet rose by 4.6% compared with the beginning of 2015.

May 6, 2015. As of May 1, 2015, Ural Federal District-based businesses and private individuals owed their creditors 81.01bn RUR, which was 20.77% more than at the start of the year, Sequoia Credit Consolidation reports. According to the company’s research findings, there is an average of 164,197 RUR worth of loan debts per capita in Sverdlovsk Region. Despite the facts that loans get issued on a much smaller scale at the moment, the amount of loan debt went up considerably, that is, by 17% compared with the start of 2015 by 50% compared with a year ago, and by 78% compared with the beginning

May 5, 2015. Students from five Yekaterinburg schools went on a guided tour of Plant 9 (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) as part of their job counseling program, the corporation’s press service reports. The young visitors went to the company military vehicles exhibition and had a chance to go inside actual production departments. They were impressed with the newest machines at Department 23; these came to replace the older versions under the company’s upgrades program. The students could ask workers about their pay and about the peculiarities of working at a defense

May 5, 2015. On April 30, Ural Airlines celebrated the 20th anniversary of the day its Yekaterinburg-Prague flight was launched, the air carrier’s press service reports. The company operated its first chartered flight from Yekaterinburg to the Czech Republic’s capital two decades ago. Five years later, a scheduled flight was launched, with over 150 people on board the first time the flight was operated. Ural Airlines have serviced over 300,000 passengers on this flight over the last twenty years. ‘Ural Airlines grew to become Václav Havel Airport Prague’s respected partner and is now partners

May 5, 2015. MegaFon and Ural Forest Surveillance Air Base keep working together on monitoring forest fires in Sverdlovsk Region online. This year, 56 surveillance cameras with 20-km coverage will be fitted with MegaFon’s software and hardware, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. MegaFon’s technologies, its expansive network, and equipment will help the air base experts keep track the situation in the local forests online, identify forest fires at their earliest stages, and react promptly. ’45 fires were prevented with the help of the video surveillance system in

May 5, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s retail trade turnover decreased by 8.5% (in comparable prices) in January-March 2015 compared with January-March 2014 and came to 240.6bn RUR, Sverdlovskstat reports. The average monthly sales of commodity goods came to 18,536 RUR per capita. Trading firms and sole traders operating outside farmers’ markets were responsible for 96.2% of retail sales, while the share of goods sold at retail markets and fairs came to 3.8%. The share of foods (including drinks) and tobacco rose by 2% against the first quarter of 2014 and came to 48.7%. The volume of food and

May 5, 2015. The Bank of Russia decreased its refinancing rate by 1.5%, that is, down to 12.5%, the bank’s official website states. The bank decided to raise the rate by as many as 6.5% at once, up to 17%, in December 2014. This had to do with the need ‘to limit the dramatically increased devaluation and inflation risks’. In January 2015, the rate was reduced by 2%, from 17% down to 15%. In March, the CBR Board of Directors decided to reduce the rate by another 1%, down to 14%.

April 30, 2015. A special firefighting vehicle produced by Omsk Transport Machine-Building Plant (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) will now be used by the Russian Armed Forces; a decree to this extent was signed by First Deputy Defense Minister Valeriy Gerasimov in early April, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘The machine was designed by our Omsk-based experts in 2012; this is one of those rare cases when it only takes a year to design, test, and produce the vehicle. In 2013, the machine was presented at Russian Arms Expo in Nizhniy Tagil and aroused great interest

April 30, 2015. Students on ChTPZ Group’s The Future of White Metallurgy Training Program came to Moscow upon the invitation of People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Konstantin Raikin, the Group’s press service reports. The trip to Moscow was made possible due to a special cultural exchange program initiated by the company shareholders Andrei Komarov and Alexander Fedorov and due to personal support of Konstantin Raikin, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, Professor, Artistic Administrator of the Higher School of Stage Arts. The idea is to offer a chance for all-round education of

April 30, 2015. Bank Koltso Urala’s experts modeled a portrait of a ‘typical customer’ opening a bank account with them. Such a customer is likely to be a woman between 45 and 55 years of age who lives in a large city or the primary town in a particular district and keeps slightly over 300,000 RUR in the bank, Koltso Urala’s press service reports. ‘The data we have been collecting over the last year or so indicate women remain the most proactive private customers: over 70% of all the bank deposits get opened by female clients. Nevertheless, male customers place larger sums with the bank:

April 30, 2015. MegaFon is launching a special offer on its international roaming services. Calls to destinations from among the most popular ones in Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport’s timetable are now up to 68% cheaper than the market’s average, the telecommunications provider’s press service says. According to Koltsovo Airport’s data, Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and India are going to be the most popular places to travel to this summer. As for Europe, holiday-makers will head mostly for Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Spain, and Montenegro. MegaFon’s base rates for

April 30, 2015. 14,000 employees of Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises had to switch to working part-time; another 5,000 workers are now on unpaid leaves, Chair of Sverdlovsk Region Trade Union Federation Andrei Vetluzhskikh said at a press conference. ‘They could all lose their jobs in the nearest future. There are currently 32,700 people registered with Sverdlovsk Region unemployment agencies, and another 19,000 could join them soon,’ he said. According to Vetluzhskikh, things have grown much worse lately: a year ago, there were virtually no employees working part-time or on unpaid leaves

April 29, 2015. Workers of Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant, Ural Railway Machine-Building Design Office, Ural Transport Machine-Building Design Office, Uralcryomash, and UBT-Service headed for the streets of Nizhniy Tagil to join in the traditional spring clean. ‘The annual clean-ups have a long tradition in Nizhniy Tagil. The first such event took pace in 1932, when the construction of the machine-building giant barely started. Not a single year has been skipped since then, the spring cleans were there even during the war,’ the corporation’s press service says. For one week, the

April 29, 2015. Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh gave out state awards to Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant/ChTPZ Department 6 foreman Sergey Nenakhov and Hot-Rolling Department 1 mill operator Evgeniy Zibarev. ‘Sergey Nenakhov, who has been working at the plant for forty years now, was awarded the title of Honored Metallurgist of the Russian Federation. He heads one of the plant’s largest departments, the legendary LDP Department 6. Last year, the company produced 1,000,000,000 kg of large-diameter pipes (up 40% on the

April 29, 2015. Ural Electrochemical Plant’s overall revenues from selling goods, work, and services came to over 20.5bn RUR in 2014, which was 5.9% more than a year earlier, the company’s Director-General Alexander Belousov said in the course of a press tour. According to Belousov, the plant’s net profit came to 6.1bn RUR last year. The annual capacity factor stood at 93.8%. ‘Our revenues have remained at around 20bn RUR for the last few years, and we expect the figure to remain approximately the same in 2015. This unfailing output figure means the company is using all of its facilities to

April 29, 2015. MegaFon, the telecommunications group, organized a round of All-Russian football championship for children from orphanages and special-needs boarding schools, the company’s press service reports. The championship is already past the semi-finals stage, with over eighty players competing for the privilege of representing Sverdlovsk Region in Sochhi. The team of Maloistoksky Foster Home was No.1 among junior teams and players from Tobolsk Foster Home proved the strongest among the adolescent teams for the third time this year. In addition to football games, MegaFon also offered

April 29, 2015. Russian Copper Company coordinated an environmental event called The Green Trail for milled-level and high school students of Tominsky, Chelyabinsk Region; this was part of the company’s new environmental project, RCC press service reports. Students from grades five to nine took part in the quest. The Green Trail is a sort of a scavenger hunt with questions to answer from the fields of environmental studies, chemistry, physics, geography, biology, and the nature of the Arctic; there was also a number of mystery boxes and tasks to identify the tunes and songs about nature based

April 28, 2015. Saint Petersburg-based Armored Vehicles Repair Plant 61 (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) repaired 11 T-34-85 tanks and 9 SU-100 self-propelled guns in preparation for the V-Day Parade in Moscow’s Red Square. ‘The legendary combat vehicles from the war times are going to enter the country’s No.1 square for the second time this year. They were first used in the parade five years ago, when the 65th anniversary of winning the war was celebrated. Coincidentally, these were the same foremen and workers who repaired the vehicles this year and back then,’ the

April 28, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s revenues rose by 14% in 2014 compared with the year 2013 and amounted to 128,123m RUR, the company’s press service reports. The Group’s gross profit went up by 31%, its EBITDA increased by 25% and came to 22,741m RUR. The company’s EBITDA profitability rose by 1.5% and thus reached 17.7%. Even though the group’s sales were up last year on a year earlier, the operating performance results were badly affected by factors beyond the company’s control such as the unstable global economic situation, rising metal prices, and increased volatility of the foreign exchange