August 25, 2014. The restaurants McDonald’s operates in Yekaterinburg no longer serve vegetable or Caesar salads, a UrBC staff member says. For one, these changes affected guests of the restaurant located at 8V Vosmoye Marta St. McDonald’s employees prefer not to explain the reasons for this; they say the missing salads ‘might reappear some time in the future’. It’s worth noting that Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) started inspecting the chain of restaurants last week. The agency said the inspections had to do with local residents’

August 25, 2014. Refugees from Southeast Ukraine who are now staying at Nightingale Grove Health Resort of Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil wrote a thank-you letter to the corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko. ‘In this letter, they expressed their sincere gratitude to Oleg Viktorovich for solving the numerous problems displaced persons are facing in Nizhniy Tagil. The corporation’s head plant supports the people in a difficult situation as best it can,’ Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The forced migrants also thanked the company’s HR Director

August 25, 2014. GAZEX, a natural gas supplier, was found guilty of the fact that two apartment buildings exploded in Revda, Sverdlovsk Region Court’s video blog states. The natural gas explosion took place on March 10, 2013. As a result, an elderly woman was killed and several people were wounded. The victims took the case to court, demanding that damages be awarded to the company. The inquiry team determined that the explosion had been caused by a leakage in the nearby pipeline. Even though the company representatives refused to plead guilty, the court ruled that GAZEX should pay the

August 25, 2014. Only 19% of Russians use the services available via the United Government Services Portal, even though nearly 70% of the country’s population are aware of this option. Such were the findings of a survey conducted by the National Agency for Financial Studies (NAFI). Residents of Central and Far Eastern Federal Districts appear to be more informed about the portal (82% and 79% of locals, respectively, know about it). As for Ural Federal District, 54% of residents know it exists and 46% of those responded learned about the portal during the survey. Only 8% of the locals have

August 25, 2014. Managing companies report that office rent rates are now growing 1% more slowly, Real Chamber of Real Estate says. According to the chamber’s analyst Mikhail Khorkov, there are simply no reasons why managing companies of most office buildings and shopping malls could raise their rent rates. It is even possible that the current renting agreements and the new operators’ prices will be reconsidered. Given the estate market’s downward trend, managers will perhaps have to reduce costs primarily through lower rent. Still, shopping center rates remain quite high and are actually

August 25, 2014. Despite a certain slowing down of the increase in the commercial estate supply, a lot of buildings are still being put up, Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s analytical report states. 355,000 sq m worth of office buildings are currently being built, and 31,000 sq m were ready by the start of the year. The Chamber reports that, although new office facilities appear on the market all the time, the supply of vacant space hasn’t been rising over the last year. Quite on the contrary, the supply is on the decrease in some market segments. For one, the share of vacant office space in

August 22, 2014. University Technological Park was approved to join the national special-purpose investment program for 2014-2016, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. The future technopolitan area will host a singe scientific and educational cluster (the new campus of Ural Federal University and University High Technologies Park, an industrial park, a launching zone, and an industrial zone). The cost of the first construction stage is estimated at 1.5bn RUR, including 1bn RUR for the construction of the building of the technological center and some 500m

August 22, 2014. The Russian Federation Government came up with an extended list of state-owned property that is to be privatized in 2014-2016. This provision was published on the Cabinet website. There are several Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises on the list of facilities that can be sold to private owners in the next few years, including Sverdlovsk Film Studio (Yekaterinburg), Tayezhny Federal State Unitary Enterprise (Tayezhny), and Central Urals Federal State Unitary Geological & Industrial Enterprise (Pervouralsk). ‘Privatization of federally owned joint stock companies will

August 22, 2014. 2GIS, a map and address application, carried a rating of Russian cities based on the number of nightclubs per 100,000 residents and calculated the median price of a cocktail that can be ordered there, the company reports. According to their data, Yekaterinburg has the third largest number of nightclubs in the country. There are forty-seven such nightlife establishments in the city, which is only outstripped by Moscow, with its 280 nightclubs, and Saint Petersburg, with its 144 clubs. As for the price of cocktails, Yekaterinburg was given the 12th position: the median price of

August 22, 2014. Head of Yekaterinburg Council Alexander Yakob will chair a group of delegates who will take part in Magistral 2014 exhibition in Nizhniy Tagil. ‘The representatives of the city’s leading transportation enterprises will also join the delegation. The theme and design of Yekaterinburg’s official exhibition stand are now being decided on, as the stand has to present the projects on the development of the Mid-Urals’ transport infrastructure,’ the city council’s press service says. Among the exhibition participants are manufacturers of various means of transportation as well as

August 22, 2014. The high-precision diesel engine machine department of ChTZ-Uraltrac (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) is getting ready to launch a high-precision HEC500 five-axis machine made by the German company Starragheckert. According to the corporation’s press service, the machine will be used for making parts and components that require very complicated processing such as turbine compressor wheels or the so-called vane wheels. Prior to this, parts used to be made with the help of the Czech machine MCU360. The parts were processed along

August 21, 2014. ChTZ-Uraltrac (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) presented its small-scale track loader PMG-12.01 (load capacity 1,200 kg) at the exhibition at Yuri Gagarin Central Recreation Park in Chelyabinsk. ‘The spacious scoop was filled with nature’s gifts such as squashes, cabbages, apples, pears, beets, and carrots. Visitors to the fair took a great interest in a vehicle decorated with fruit and vegetables and took photographs of their children against this spectacular backdrop. A few lucky ones could get inside the driver’s cabin and admire the ease of joystick

August 21, 2014. In the first half of 2014, the number of claims relating to non-payment of bank loans issued to private individuals that were laid with Sverdlovsk Region-based courts rose by 48.6%, judge of Sverdlovsk Region Court Maria Kulikova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. According to Kulikova, more than 16,700 such cases were heard in courts in the twelve months of 2013; whereas this year, the figure came to over 14,600 cases in the first half of the year alone. ‘This means we can state the number of claims relating to loan enforcement started going up in the second half

August 21, 2014. ChTPZ Group’s warehouse facility (located on the premises of Uraltrubostal Trading House) hosted a two-day business conference dedicated to use of ChTPZ pipes in machine-building and shipbuilding and on the local markets. The company presented the production potential of the Group’s pipe manufacturing division at the conference, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. 100 representatives of metal-trading companies, servicing centers, metallurgical and metal-consuming enterprises from all over Russia paid a visit to production departments of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a

August 21, 2014. Yekaterinburg’s existing home market prices keep growing by 0.1% a week. Apartments have grown 4.3% more expensive since the beginning of the year, including a 0.4% price increase over the last four weeks, Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s press service says. According to the chamber’s analytical department, the median price of a square meter of housing in apartments available for purchase in Yekaterinburg came to 75,921 RUR on August 18, 2014. The existing home market supply keeps going up as well. Over five months, the number of dwellings advertised for sale through real estate

August 21, 2014. It now takes less time to get access to Sverdlovsk Region’s electric grids, which has a direct impact on investment climate improvements, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department says based on the conclusions made at the local government meeting. Sverdlovsk Region Economics Minister Dmitri Nozhenko explained that the electric power suppliers’ regulations had been improved and trilateral agreements had been signed by local suppliers, Sverdlovsk Region Dispatching Office, and Sverdlovsk Region Government. Thanks to this, getting connected to electric

August 20, 2014. Ural Electrochemical Plant (a member enterprise of Rosatom’s TVEL Fuel Company based in Novouralsk) hosted a session of Rosatom’s Production System Development Coordination Committee that was dedicated to looking into the company performance in the first half of the year and setting target figures for the second half, the enterprise’s press service reports. During this meeting, Ural Electrochemical Plant’s production system development coordinator Ian Konishchev said that the company was working on 29 production system development projects at the moment, which outstripped all

August 20, 2014. Eight railway carriages designed by the team of Ural Railway Carriage Design Office (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) are soon going to be exhibited in the corporation’s railway produce exhibition. ‘These are experimental products that were developed in the late nineties and the beginning of the new millennium. These carriages were not actually used at railways, yet the technical solutions and innovations that were used in them were also implemented in later series-produced models and are still in use,’ the corporation’s press

August 20, 2014. In July 2014, Yekaterinburg received 252.95m RUR in non-tax revenues, the city council’s press service reports. This figure included 176.63m RUR worth of privatization income, 64.43m RUR worth of rent money, and 11.86m RUR worth of advertizing revenues. Revenues are considered to be non-tax ones if they stem from payments for the use of state funds or assets or from compensation for services rendered to legal entities and private individuals.

August 20, 2014. OAO Gazprombank opened a 1bn RUR credit line for OAO Uralmashzavod, the enterprise’s press service reports. The loan amount comes to 5.68% of Uralmashzavod’s assets, and it has to be paid back by July 16, 2015. The deal was approved by the company shareholders in the course of the annual general meeting on June 25. It is not reported just how this money will be spent. In the first half of 2014, Uralmashzavod’s net loss amounted to 854.391m RUR, (456.586m RUR in the second quarter of the year and 397.805m RUR in the first quarter). The company’s gross profit declined down to