April 16, 2015. Lepse (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) reopened its reconstructed foundry facility. Repairs took about three months, the corporation’s press service reports. An overhaul was given to all the pressing, polishing, etching, and galvanizing facilities as well as to all the storage facilities for poisonous chemicals, fittings, and precious metals. Besides, a polishing unit was bought to increase the precision and improve the quality of silver-coating operations. The modern unit traps all the silver dust particles and thus allows for zero loss of the precious

April 16, 2015. MMK and ChTPZ Group’s Coordination Council started working at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). The council meeting was attended by ChTPZ Deputy Director-General for Strategic Cooperation Alexander Golodyagin, ChTPZ Head of Purchases Alexander Kolchin, MMK Deputy Director-General for Sales Nicolai Lyadov, and representatives of ChTPZ and MMK commercial, production, and technical divisions. According to ChTPZ press service, MMK and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant/ChTPZ are working together on their strategic cooperation program targeted at providing Russian oil and gas

April 16, 2015. ChTPZ Engineering (a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) presented its innovative pipe products at the 9th O&G OILTECH Conference in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, on April 14-15. The Group made a presentation on its casing and compression pipes with Premium threaded joints, heavy-duty OCTGs meant for transportation of fluids with corrosive ingredients, corrosion-resistant casing and compression pipes meant for environments with increased sulfur and carbon dioxide content, and cold-resistant casing and compression pipes suitable for extremely low temperatures (-60 degrees centigrade).

April 15, 2015. Ural Airlines are offering their customers a new service: plane tickets can now be booked through a call center. ‘Call 8-800-7700-262 and pay by your Visa or MasterCard right over the phone. Once the payment has come through, your plane ticket arrives in your mailbox,’ the company says.

April 15, 2015. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Emergencies, Colonel-General Alexander Chupriyan paid a visit to Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s heat and power station, the corporation’s press service reports. The visit was part of the official’s business trip to Nizhniy Tagil aimed at inspecting the city’s hazardous industrial facilities. The MoE representative was accompanied by head of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry Sverdlovsk Region division, Major-General Andrei Zalenskiy, head of MoE Ural division, Lieutenant-General Sergei Miroshnichenko, Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergey Nosov, and Uralvagonzavod

April 15, 2015. Russian Copper Company/RCC Group invites everyone to join their first, introductory webinar on Planet Earth and Small Motherland at 5PM Moscow Time on April 15. The webinar will be conducted by Professor of People’s Friendship University of Russia, Director of Center for Innovative Economy under the Russian Academy of Sciences & Russian Ministry for Economic Development’s Productive Forces Research Council Svetlana Lipina. The main idea behind the course is to enhance people’s environmental awareness. ‘We also hope the webinars will motivate our students to design and

April 15, 2015. Sochi no longer remains a popular destination with Yekaterinburg travelers, Tutu.ru’s research findings indicate. ‘Just like in the previous months, most flights operated from Yekaterinburg in March were bound for Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Sochi was in the third place in Tutu.ru’s rating as recently as February, but now the bronze went to Krasnodar, with Sochi dropping to the 11th position. The city is now not even among the top ten most popular places to go to. The share of plane tickets for Sochi flights booked via Tutu.ru dropped from 5.7% in February to 1.6% in March,’

April 15, 2015. The number of vacancies advertised by employers decreased by 34% in March compared with a year earlier, HeadHunter’s research division reports. Most of the vacancies are in sales (40%), IT (14%), banking (13%), and the building sector (8%). At the same time, the number of submitted CVs went up by 42% in March 2015 against March 2014.

April 14, 2015. Ural Federal District-based federal constituencies (Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region) proved Russia’s richest territories, while Sverdlovsk Region was only given the 27th position in the rating, RBC reports. Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region’s average monthly pay to minimum living wage ratio stood at 5.6 and 5.2, respectively, in 2013-2014. RBC research findings indicate that the highest average monthly pay (90,400 RUR) is found in Nadym, Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region. At the same time,

April 14, 2015. New homes prices went up by 3.7% in Sverdlovsk Region in the first quarter of the year; the prices on the existing homes market rose by 0.2%, Sverdlovskstat reports. Prices increased for all types of housing, with average quality apartments growing 5.2% more expensive, enhanced quality ones growing 3.1% more expensive, and premium segment ones growing 2.7% more expensive. As for the existing homes, prices went up by 0.3% for enhanced quality apartments and by0.6%for premium quality ones, whereas low and average quality homes grew 1.3% and 0.1% cheaper, respectively. According

April 14, 2015. The number of credit/debit card transactions made abroad decreased by 20% in the first quarter of 2015 against a year earlier, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s press service says. According to the bank experts, 76,500 transactions were performed in January-March compared with nearly 96,000 a year earlier. UBRD customers usually use their bank cards abroad to pay for their purchases (65,000 transactions) and, less frequently, to take out some cash (5,000 transactions). ‘A drop in the number of foreign transactions was to be expected: tour operators said as

April 14, 2015. Three tanks made at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant, namely, T-34-85, T-72B3, and T-90C, are going to take part in the Victory Day Parade in Nizhniy Tagil, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘Uralvagonzavod vehicles joining the parade has already grown traditional. Our T-34-85 first entered the streets of Nizhniy Tagil on May 9, 1985. The tank was made at the plant in 1945 and mounted on a pedestal next to the main entrance in 1946. In 1985, the tank was driven off the pedestal and (after a quick repair) onto the streets. This vehicle and a number of others have

April 14, 2015. 386,500 used cars were sold in Russia in March 2015, which was 24.3% less than a year earlier (when 510,300 automobiles were sold), Avtostat reports. The used cars market shrank by nearly 20% in only three months and now comes to 1.1m units. 32.5% of all the used cars on the market are LADA makes, especially VAZ 2107, Samara, and 2110. Toyota is still the most popular foreign car, with 40,300 automobiles (over 10% of the entire number) sold in March. Nissan and Chevrolet are the second and third best-selling used cars on the market, respectively. Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen,

April 13, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) is going to supply a set of eight tractors to one of Uzbekistan’s oil and gas companies. All the vehicles will be manufactured in April and shipped to customer in May, the corporation’s press service reports. According to the plant’s CIS & International Sales Director Alexander Sergeyev, it took the parties about a year to sign the contract. The plant and its dealer won the respective tenders in Uzbekistan and now has agreements on supplying as many as two sets of vehicles. Tractors from the

April 13, 2015. Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant/KULZ (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) is now collecting applications from workers who’d like to go on holiday to Alushta, a health resort in the Crimea; the trip and the stay will be covered by the plant, which will cost the company nearly 2m RUR, the corporation’s press service reports. All the organization issues are taken care of by the company trade union. ‘We feel it is important to give our employees a chance to recharge their batteries and get a good rest. Besides, our CSR project also supports the Crimean economy. It’s

April 13, 2015. LSR.Nedvizhimost-Ural expects to get 87,000 m2 worth of new housing commissioned in Yekaterinburg this year, the company CEO Vladimir Kritsky said at a city council meeting. ‘Given the current sales dynamics, we decided that the commissioning of some of the apartment buildings in Michurinsky Complex in Shirokaya Rechka should be postponed till 2016,’ Kritsky said. Now the company introduced some 120,000 m2 of new homes in 2014. Kritsky announced in March 2015 that the target figure for 2015 was 100,000 m2. The figure has now been reduced down to 87,000 m2.

April 13, 2015. Yekaterinburg-based Glazurit, a car dealer that specialized in Opel and Chevrolet makes up to now, is going to switch to other brands. Glazurit explained to an UrBC reporter that the company management was currently negotiating with suppliers. The plan is to start selling some new brands after all the Opel and Chevrolet makes still left in stock have been sold. No announcements have been made yet as to which brands the company is planning on representing. In fact, most of Yekaterinburg motor shows are now putting their remaining Opel and Chevrolet pieces on sale. ‘We are now

April 13, 2015. Ural Airlines is going to offer free flights to the Great Patriotic War veterans and their companions in celebration of the 70th Victory Day. The company will cover flights operated on May 3-12, 2015, the airline’s press service reports. Ural Airlines offers free flights to war veterans every year to give them a chance to visit their relatives, friends, and fellow veterans. For more details, please go to our website,’ the press service says. The reimbursements are only offered to the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War veterans, so applicants need to provide a veteran certificate

April 10, 2015. 4,556 people were made redundant by Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises between January 1 and April 8, 2015, Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly Deputy Andrei Alshevskikh reports. The number of laid-off workers rose by nearly 3,000 people between January 28 and April 8; the number of those working part-time went up by 1,716. 7,692 employees found themselves on forced leaves by April 1 compared with 634 workers on January 28. The number of enterprises operating entirely part-time increased by 36 between January 28 and April 8 and now comes to 132 companies. The number of

April 10, 2015. Heavyweights that are over 12,000kg big will have to pay for using Sverdlovsk Region highways, the local government’s website states. The new system will be enacted after the Russian Transport Ministry’s bill on changes in the Russian Federation Fiscal Code has come into effect. ‘Under the new legislation, federal constituencies are allowed to decide whether to let heavyweights use their highways if they pay a compensation for the damage their cause,’ the website states. Sverdlovsk Region authorities are definitely going to use this option. According to Sverdlovsk Region