May 23, 2014. Mayor of Yekaterinburg signed a decree on naming a part of an embankment of the River Iset in Zheleznodorozhniy District, the city council's press service reports. According to this document, the embankment along Gorodskoy Pond from Vassiliy Yeremin St to Chelyuskintsev St is now called Olympic Embankment. The idea was first put forth by Yekaterinburg Homefront Workers, War & Sports Veterans Club in February 2014. It's worth noting that it is exactly in this section of the embankment where some of Yekaterinburg's most important sports facilities are located:

May 22, 2014. Atrium European Real Estate, a major European developer which had meant to put up an extension to Park House Mall in Yekaterinburg decided to freeze the construction, Vedomosti reports. According to the newspaper, Atrium European Real Estate will close down two projects this year due to the current political situation in Russia. It was known that the company had been planning to construct new extensions to Park House Malls in Kazan and Togliatti as well. The decision to freeze the Yekaterinburg project was taken ‘quite a while ago’.

May 22, 2014. Ural Airlines added the 5th Airbus A319 liner to its fleet of vehicles today, the company’s press service reports. This means the company now operates 34 aircraft, including 19 A320 ones, 10 A321 ones, and 5 A319 ones). The new A319 liner has 134 seats, including 126 economy class ones and 8 business class ones. The new plane will be used for operating both international and domestic flights. This is actually the fourth plane the airline has bought this year. The European concern Airbus’s liners proved highly efficient and comfortable for mid-range flights. The Airbus А

May 22, 2014. Titan, a 110/10 kilowatt substation, is now being put up in Titanium Valley, a special economic zone. The 200m-ruble station is expected to be launched in the last quarter of 2014; this will be the first power source for the future enterprises in the zone, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. The electric power substation is being built by order of MRSK Urala as part of a technological hookup agreement. Under the terms of the project, the substation will be fitted with two 10 MVA transformers, with the capacity of each transformer to be raised

May 22, 2014. A resident of Nizhniy Tagil named Vitaliy Dudko proved the most active author of the Tankopedia Project in April: he uploaded 28 entries there last month and was presented branded clothes and souvenirs from UVZSHOP.ru by Uralvagonzavod Corporation – the company that actually came up with the idea of such an online encyclopedia. Another proactive participant from Moscow will receive his present in the mail, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service says. Vitaliy works at one of Nizhniy Tagil’s advertising agencies and has been fond of tanks since his college years: he first went

May 22, 2014. The official unemployment rate in Sverdlovsk Region came to 1.24%, or 28,670 people as of May 1, 2014. This is 0.13% less than a year earlier, Sverdlovsk Region Economics Ministry reports. 23 cities and towns are actually doing better than the constituency’s average. The number of people who were officially registered as jobless with the local employment agencies was 28,670. The number of job openings advertized by local employers is 1.25 times greater than the number of the unemployed, so the tension coefficient (the ratio of the unemployed to the amount of vacancies) was 0.8

May 21, 2014. 437,600 sq m of housing were commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January-April 2014. This was 2.3 times more than in January-April 2013, Sverdlovskstat’s data indicate. All in all, 273,800 sq m worth of dwellings became available in the first quarter of the year, including 188,700 sq m worth of private houses. This is 2.1 times and 1.8 times more, respectively, than a year earlier. All in all, 277,600 sq m of private houses were commissioned. The figures looked the most impressive in the month of April – 163,800 sq m, which exceeded last April’s figures by 2.8 times. The amount

May 21, 2014. The Economic Security Service of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ-Uraltrac, a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) and their Byelorussian partners managed to uncover and eliminate a channel for the inflow of counterfeit goods that were illegally manufactured by outsiders yet bore the company’s registered logo and trademark, the corporation’s press service says. The files relating to the investigation conducted with support from Chelyabinsk plant’s experts were directed to Byelorussia’s Internal Affairs Ministry. As a result, the company’s

May 21, 2014. Sales dropped by 20% to 30% on the Russian advertising market last year, Chairman of the National Association for Advertising & Souvenir Industry (NASR) in Ural Federal District Valeriy Balyabin said at a forum on advertising technologies, its growth points and development strategies in Yekaterinburg. He says the plummeting sales have to do with SMEs reducing their advertising budgets, for one reason. ‘Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of our industry. Over 600,000 entrepreneurs went out of business last year, which can’t help affecting our industry,’ the

May 21, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region electric power industry will receive 310bn RUR worth of co-funding in 2015-2019. The money will be allocated from non-budgetary sources. This will make it possible to create 290 megawatts worth of power-generating facilities, Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Energy & Communal Housing Services Nikolai Smirnov said at a briefing today. The program provides for the completion of hydro power stations in Nizhnyaya Tura and Serov and of the fourth power-generating unit in Beloyarskaya Power Station. The program will also result in the creation of some 20,000

May 21, 2014. A two-day research-to-practice conference held on the premises of Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant was dedicated to training competitive blue-collar workers as part of the corporate training strategy. According to the corporation’s press service, heads of HR departments from all over the holding, representatives of Sverdlovsk Region-based defense enterprises, and founders and representatives of Uralvagonzavod Corporate University came to discuss the issue. The conference comprised three round table discussions: 1) Dual Education. German Experience and Dual Education

May 20, 2014. ChTPZ Group started mass production of large-diameter pipes with a three-layer, corrosion-resistant polyethylene coating based on nano-modified materials made by Rosnano Metaclay. These unique materials are expected to replace their foreign counterparts on the domestic market, the enterprise’s press service says. Russian high-density polyethylene is modified with the help of nanosilicates and has the properties necessary for making pipes that are resistant to heat, wear, and cracking and stay flexible in low temperatures. The first industrial-scale shipments of nano-coated pipes

May 20, 2014. Yurginsky Machine-Building Plant (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) adopted a policy of and set targets for quality, environmental protection, labor protection, and industrial safety for 2014. ‘Yurginsky Plant is trying to enhance its long-term competitiveness and to increase its customers’ trust. Making hi tech, science-intensive, competitive produce as well as ensuring safe working conditions for staff and minimizing their environmental impact are the company’s top priorities in this. This is why an intergraded management system was

May 20, 2014. Representatives of some 600 companies from 70 different countries will take part in the international industrial exhibition Innoprom 2014 that will take part in Yekaterinburg on July 9-12. This is comparable with last year’s figures, the exhibition’s press service told UrBC. These 600 companies comprise exponents, participants, and the business forum speakers, it is explained. According to the press service, they expect at least as many visitors to the event as last year, that is, 53,000 people. The industrial exhibition Innoprom will take place in Yekaterinburg for the 5th time

May 20, 2014. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), one of the world’s leading OCTG manufacturers, and Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd, the operator of one of the world’s largest multi-faceted oil and gas projects Sakhalin 2, signed a memorandum of understanding, TMK’s press service reports. The memorandum provides for the development of effective cooperation in terms of getting TMK’s pipe products qualified and certified as to whether they can be used by Sakhalin Energy. The memorandum provides for an audit and technical qualification of Volzhsky Pipe Plant and Taganrog Metallurgical

May 20, 2014. Museum Night, an international multicultural project that unfolded in Yekaterinburg on the night between May 17 and May 18 with some support from the city council, was attended by approximately 100,000 people. According to the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg Council, data on the number of locals and visitors who checked out the 73 exhibition points in Yekaterinburg keep going up. ‘This is the 8th time this multicultural project has been taking place in Yekaterinburg, and it undoubtedly attracts increasingly more residents and visitors with every round,’ Yekaterinburg Council’s

May 19, 2014. 25 years ago, on May 17, 1989, the USSR Defense Ministry’s Order 0127 put the self-propelled howitzer Msta-S into service. ‘The howitzer was developed by Transmash Design Office of Uraltransmash (currently a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod) under the guidance of Chief Designer Yuri Tomashov. Msta-S outstripped both its predecessor 2S3M Akatsia and its foreign counterparts at the time in terms of every single parameter,’ the corporation’s press service says. 2S19 Msta-S has an increased maximum fire range and yet can still use the ‘old’ ammunition from Akatsia set. Thanks to

May 19, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region was declared the best Russian Federation constituency for small and medium enterprises’ development and in terms of creating a growth-inducing environment at the All-Russian SME Days Forum in Moscow on May 13-15, 2014, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Entrepreneurship Support Fund reports. 11 Russian Federation constituencies and over 300 small and medium enterprises took part in the forum. Sverdlovsk Region was represented by Sverdlovsk Region Entrepreneurship Support Fund, whose stand featured presentations of seven innovative enterprises. Six companies

May 19, 2014. Unemployment rate in Sverdlovsk Region in February-April 2014 was estimated at 5.6% by the International Labour Organization, Sverdlovskstat’s press service says. The number of working residents came to an average of 2,261,200 people in these three months (February-April 2014), including 2,134,300 people with a job (94.4%) and 126,900 people (5.6%) without a job but one the lookout for one (the ILO classification defines them as the unemployed). 28,700 people (1.2% of the local work force) were registered as unemployed with the state-run employment agencies by the end of April

May 19, 2014. Ural Locomotives (a joint venture run by Sinara Group and Siemens AG) came up with a report on their first compliance audit aimed at checking how the company meets the IRIS International Railway Industry Standard. According to Sinara Group’s press service, a group of independent auditors from DGS, Austria, confirmed the company has been successfully improving its business management system in accordance with the requirements set out in the railway industry’s primary standard. The IRIS compliance audit comprised looking into the changes taking place last year in the way the