July 31, 2013. Stock exchanges stopped trading Uralkaliy’s shares at 2:58 pm Moscow time as the quotations dropped by over 20% compared with the price at the close of business the day before, Prime reports. The only trading that still goes on is the repo and negotiated deals mode ones. A discrete auction will be held in the T+ mode in the meanwhile.

July 30, 2013. The police detained a person suspected of large-scale theft of alumina from the premises of Bogoslovsky smelter. The suspect in question happens to be the director of one of the enterprise’s departments, the press service of Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry reports. The suspect was interrogated on July 26 in the course of an inquiry relating to large-scale theft of alumina from the premises of Bogoslovsky smelter. On July 27, the alleged offender was arrested for the time of the inquiry procedures. The police officers from the local division of

July 30, 2013. The reconstruction of the federal highway between Perm and Yekaterinburg might become a frozen project. Russia’s Defense Ministry does not grant the road developers permission to cut down trees in the vicinity of Zvezdny, a restricted entry administrative territorial unit, even though the ministry had allowed the builders earlier to put up an overhead road and the driveways leading to it. As the Defense Ministry is not reacting to any queries, the contractors might not be able to meet the commissioning deadline, Kommersant-Prikamye reports. Permdorstroy, the company that is

July 30, 2013.Ural Airlines and Koltsovo Airport coordinated the first-ever joint spotting session in Yekaterinburg as a way to celebrate the 70th anniversary of civil aviation industry, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘On July 23-26, Ural Airlines’ aircraft and Koltsovo Airport had cameras pointed at them all the time. Every day at dawn, whatever the weather, spotters could make interesting and exciting shots of the takeoff and landing as well as of the servicing of the aircraft. The best vantage points were set up for hundreds of photographers from all over the country. The survey

July 30, 2013. The prices on the new homes market in Yekaterinburg rose by 6.5% over the last three months. According to the spokesperson for Ural Chamber of Real Estate, this price increase has to do with the fact that the number of finished or nearly finished buildings rose over the given period; besides, certain apartment buildings sold particularly well. ‘As a result, the new homes market split into two groups different in terms of quality. The first group comprises ‘weak’ projects where the pricing policy does not change for four to six months and more regardless of the stage the

July 30, 2013. OboronGeoGroup, a company set up to develop the resource base of Russian Chrome 1915, is now applying for insolvency, Kommersant refers to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court as reporting. The enterprise was set up to develop Zhizhinskoye-Sharomskoye chromium deposit, but the project was frozen due to its economic inexpediency. OboronGeoGroup produced and sold 13,000 tons of ore, but all the jobs were stopped in late 2012 when it turned out that the actual amount of chromium in the deposit was less than expected,’ RosSpetsSplav’s press center explained. The chromium content in

July 29, 2013. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member of ChTPZ Group) company museum celebrated its 40th anniversary recently. The museum is Pervouralsk's largest historic and cultural center and one of the most available and fullest sources of information about the history of the plant and the most remarkable workers and Pervouralsk residents, the enterprise's press service reports. 'This is not a coincidence that the museum offers data on both workers and residents: the city was developing alongside with the plant. This is why not only the plant's top management,

July 29, 2013. Ural Airlines keeps expanding the network of destinations available from Irkutsk. A new international China-bound flight will be launched on October 21, 2013: the Irkutsk-Harbin one, the air carrier's press officer reports. The price of a one-way ticket comes to ?90 (fees excluded). The new scheduled Irkutsk-Harbin-Irkutsk flight will be operated every Monday. Harbin is one of the most important cities in the North-Western China. In addition to being an administrative and economic resource hub, the city is also a home to the country's largest ski resort Yabuli;

July 29, 2013. Markswebb Rank & Report, an analytics agency, did a research on the efficiency of m-banking services offered to private individuals; the result was the Mobile Banking Rank 2013. Life Financial Group's m-banking was rated as the 11th best iPhone application and 19th best Android app, VUZ-Bank's press service reports. There are 29 banks in the rating that offer their customers iPhone apps and 28 banks that offer applications for Android. The criterion against which the quality of mobile apps was assessed was just how fully the customers' needs were satisfied.

July 29, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region is going to be given 5bn RUR worth of federal budget subsidies to have its agricultural equipment and vehicles upgraded and replaced, Russia's Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fedorov said during his bilateral meeting with Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev, the Governor's Information Policies Department reports. 'I can say say that we intend to allocate another 5bn RUR to renovate the agricultural vehicles. I believe Sverdlovsk Region is going to get a very visible share of this. So far, we have only allotted this area 2.3bn RUR,'

July 29, 2013. Over 20 industrial enterprises based in Sverdlovsk Region are going to receive subsidies from Sverdlovsk Region budget so that they can pay the interest on the loans they took out to implement their investment projects, the region's government's press service reports. Following a tender, the Ministry for Industry & Science decided to offer government support to 22 businesses; the subsidies total to 186.3m RUR and are to be directed to the payment of loans taken out to finance investment projects. The interest in question comes to no more than two-thirds of the

July 26, 2013. Yekaterinburg office buildings market is gradually growing bigger: 9 new business centers will be commissioned in 2013 alone. The city council reports that the office space amounts to 1.441m sq m in the business centers alone, and some 100,000 sq m get commissioned every year. This year, 140,000 sq m worth of office space are expected to be commissioned. At the same time, Ural-Hermes Consulting Company's analysts point out that the office buildings market's development will slow down over the next two to three years. This has to do with the fact that the buildings

July 26, 2013. Yekaterinburg Zheleznodorozhny District court took into account the claims made by the district prosecution authorities and seized the immovable assets belonging to a 24-year-old shareholder and Director of Pink Pelican Travel Bureau, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities reports. The investigative team believes the woman illegally took hold of the money obtained from her customers under the tourist services contracts; these amount to about 1.5m RUR. 18 criminal lawsuits were instituted involving the company director on June 26-28, 2013, with

July 26, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a new on board service – iPad hire. Passengers can now hire the tablet computer right during the flight to pass the hours away, The computer already has interesting films and cartoons on it that both adults and kids will like. The company's press service reports that the new service is available for passengers on international flights that are over four hours long; this applies to flights from Yekaterinburg to Dubai, Tel Aviv, Rome, Prague, and Barcelona. To hire an iPad and make your flight even more comfortable, you just have to ask the flight

July 26, 2013. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), one of the world's leading OCTG manufacturers, shipped 2,140 tons of steel pipes to customers in the first half of 2013; this was 2% more than in the first half of 2012. Besides, the volume of shipments in Q2'13 was also bigger than in Q1'13, the company's report states. The seamless pipe shipments decreased by 1% compared with a year earlier and reached 1,244,000 tons in the first half of 2013. In the second quarter of the year, shipments declined by 1% against the first quarter as well and came to 619,000 tons. The welded

July 26, 2013. About 57,000 complaints and claims were placed with Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities in the first six months of 2013, which was 13% more than a year earlier, the spokesperson for the authorities reports. About 30,000 complaints and claims have been dealt with by Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities over the said period. About 60% of those relate to compliance with the law and to legitimacy of normative acts; this includes cases that have to do with the violation of labor law (11% of claims), housing law (16%) and with the investigative and inquiry

July 25, 2013. Ural Airlines announced a sale on the tickets from Saint Petersburg to the south of Russia and the CIS. The air carrier's press officer reports that starting from July 23, 2013, tickets for the Saint Petersburg-Yerevan flight will be available for only ?180. Ural Airlines operate flights from Saint Petersburg to the Armenian capital every Tuesday. Starting from August 16, the residents of Saint Petersburg can also benefit from a discount offered on the flights bound for Anapa and Simferopol. Tickets for the flights to the seaside town in Krasnodar Territory will start from

July 25, 2013. The Director-General of the Mid-Urals Development Corporation (KRSU) Sergey Filippov's term has been extended for one year, Kommersant refers to the company's Corporate Secretary Vadim Khlyzov as saying. The decision to renew the contract was taken by KRSU Board of Directors. The Mid-Urals Development Corporation was set up by Sverdlovsk Region authorities in 2008 in order to work on a number of large-scale investment projects in the area, including the construction of Yekaterinburg EXPO, an exhibition center, and the creation of the Titanium Valley special economic

July 25, 2013. Ural Federal District division of the Internal Affairs Ministry reports on the results of their Operation Illegal Immigrant that was carried out in cooperation with the officers from the local divisions of the Federal Migration Service and the Federal Security Service. The division's press service reports that 19 such operations were performed in Ural Federal District's federal constituencies in the first half of 2013; 207 people were detained and 124 administrative offense reports were written relating to foreign subjects or apatrides. 'The illegal migrants in

July 25, 2013. Ascent Travel stopped paying any compensation to tourists as the company's funds have nearly run out, the representatives of the tour operator's insurers – AlfaStrakhovaniye and Pomoshch – report, the press service of the Association of Russian Tour Operators says. 'They haven't refused to meet their obligations officially, but de facto they stopped paying,' a representative of AlfaStrakhovaniye said. The insurance company's representative also said that Ascent Travel promised to come up with a statement of insolvency. However, the list of tourists