May 15, 2013. MegaFon announces some changes in the Ural branch management. Anna Belosheikina, the former head of MegaFon Ural IT Department, was appointed Director of MegaFon Ural’s Sverdlovsk Region division, the mobile carrier’s press service reports. In her new position, Ms Belosheikina is going to keep on implementing the company’s strategy aimed at technological leadership and building up on the Mid-Urals market share. Ms Belosheikina’s top priority as a director is to reinforce MegaFon’s status in Sverdlovsk Region as that of a reliable telecommunications provider who offers good

May 15, 2013. ‘Sverdlovsk Region’s trade market is still one of the largest ones in Russia. Every year, our output keeps on growing, and in 2013 the region’s retail trade turnover is expected to reach about 1 trillion RUR,’ says the region’s Deputy Agriculture & Foods Minister Tatiana Popova. Sverdlovsk Region’s retail trade turnover came to 858.8bn RUR last year, which was 12.3% and 6.4% more than a year earlier in actual and comparable prices, respectively, Sverdlovsk Region Government Press Service & Information Department reports. The region’s retail trade network currently comes

May 15, 2013. Yekaterinburg Leninsky District Court declared the person who masterminded a number of pyramid schemes, Alexei Kalinichenko, guilty of large-scale fraud (Article 159 (part 4) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code). The trader, who is accused of having stolen over 1bn RUR, got 7.5 years in prison, a UrBC observer reports from the court room. According to the investigative team, in 2003 Kalinichenko set up Livingston Investment, OOO Global Gaming Expo, and OOO UTG to borrow money from the unsuspecting customers, allegedly to use it for Forex interbank market trading. He promised

May 15, 2013. Slightly over 138,000 residents of Sverdlovsk Region registered with the state services web portal, which makes the region Russia’s No.4 among all the federal constituencies in terms of the number of registered state services portal users, Sverdlovsk Region Government Press Service & Information Department reports. The local residents are actually growing more active in their use of the portal that tries to react to their queries on the basis of ‘only one clerk principle. At the moment, 63 different e-services are available in the region, and by the end of the year, locals

May 14, 2013. In the first three months of 2013, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s basic performance indicators went on growing. The bank’s assets have gone up by 8.3% since the beginning of the year and exceeded 154bn RUR on April 1, 2013 (against 142bn RUR on January 1, 2013), the bank’s press service reports. The bank’s own fund increased by 5.9% (from 12.9bn RUR to 13.6bn RUR) in the first quarter of 2013.At the same time, the N1 figures came to 10.79% while the minimum requirements come to 10%. The UBRD’s net profit came to 320.2m RUR (against 164.3m RUR on January 1,

May 14, 2013. Russian citizens are now paying their loans off less frequently than before. Banks’ customers have not made a single payment on nearly 600,000 loans, and the number of such loans rose by 15% in the first quarter of 2013, Rossiyskaya Gazeta refers to the National Credit History Bureau as saying. The number of loans that banks haven’t received a single back-payment on started to rise as early as the second quarter of 2012, and the Bureau believes this number is prone to keep growing. The organizations feels this has to do with the fact that banks are now dealing with the more

May 14, 2013. A visiting session of ad hoc work team set up to monitor the implementation of the Russian Federation President’s decree in Alapayevsk will take place on May 15. The meeting will be dedicated to plans to create more jobs in Eastern Administrative District, Sverdlovsk Region Government Press Service & Information Administration reports. The region’s Economics Ministry says 34 applications regarding the creation and modernization of 4,190 new jobs have already been placed with them. Most of the applications came from Alapayevsk and Irbit. For one, these are Alapayevsk Mechanic

May 14, 2013. Ural Airlines’ fleet of vehicles got a new addition on May 8: the company bought yet another Airbus 320 with 156 passenger seats. The aircraft arrived in Yekaterinburg from Iordania, where it had been used by a local air carrier. At the moment, Ural Airlines operates a total of 28 planes (19 A320 ones and 9 A321 ones). This year, the airline is planning to buy four more plane, the air carrier’s press service reports. Ural Airlines launched its fleet renovation program in 2006, and the company has been buying new aircraft on a yearly basis since then. The European concern

May 14, 2013. In the first quarter of 2013, Sverdlovsk Region’s fiscal authorities imposed 2,7bn RUR worth of additional taxes to be paid to the Russian Federation’s consolidated budget in the course of their inspections, the press officer of the Federal Tax Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. According to the division’s estimates, the total amount of additionally imposed taxes increased by 91.5m RUR (or 4%) in the first quarter of 2013 against a year earlier. Most of these additionally imposed taxes were value-added tax (61%, or 1.628bn RUR), corporation tax (16%, or 430.5m RUR),

May 13, 2013. Some solemn ceremonies took place at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s enterprises on the eve of Victory Day, the 68th anniversary of winning the Great Patriotic War. The war veterans and homefront workers were congratulated on the event in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kirov, Nizhniy Tagil, Omsk, Saint Petersburg, Volchansk, and other cities where the corporation’s enterprises are located. Each of these companies made a great contribution to the victory in the war at the time, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The congratulations and words of gratitude were addressed

May 13, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region Government ruled that a number of automated weather monitoring terminals should be installed on the biggest highways to enhance the road traffic safety. The terminals provide relevant data on the current weather conditions as well as the condition of the road surface and help make efficient decisions on road-building or fixing, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Department reports. According to experts from the region’s Highway Administration, the system is a multi-functional one and allows not only for collecting data on weather and

May 13, 2013. Rosstat (the Federal State Statistics Service) recently carried a report on the inflation rate in April 2013. According to the Service, inflation rate in Russia came to 0.5% last month and to 2.4% since the beginning of the year, Bank Koltso Urala’s press service reports. According to the data provided by Rosstat, the food prices rose by 0.7% last month, the prices of non-food items increased by 0.4%, and the price of services went up by 0.5%. The food prices rose due to the traditional seasonal increase in the price of imported fruits and vegetables and also because of the last

May 13, 2013. Thanks to support from Sverdlovsk Region Government, 3, 436 Great Patriotic War veterans living in the area received a one-time allowance to have their homes remodeled, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Department reports. In 2011, some changes were made to the local Social Support to Sverdlovsk Region War Veterans Act dated November 25, 2004 (190-OZ); these changes provided for incidental 100,000-rouble allowances to the Great Patriotic War veterans to have their dwellings remodeled or repaired. Over 3,400 veterans have been given the subsidy since

May 13, 2013. The consumer price index came to 100.5% in April 2013, and to 102.4% since the beginning of the year, while the most basic grocery basket’s monetary equivalent rose by 2.1%, Rosstat reports. Vegetable prices grew most noticeable last month: onions, potatoes, and beetroot became 11.4% to 16.5% more expensive, while the price of fresh tomatoes, cabbage and carrots increased by 7.8% to 10.5%. Semolina became 1.8% more expensive, while buckwheat prices, on the other hand, dropped by 1.1%. Besides, salmon caviar, strong wine and Russian-made brandy are now 1.5% more expensive,

May 7, 2013. Rosneft bought a dozenB-10M2 marsh bulldozers from Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ), Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The oil company ordered the vehicles with hydraulic-mechanical gear that makes the bulldozer easy to operate and a planetary final drive that enhances the reliability of the machine; all of the customer’s specifications were taken into account. The customer, one of Rosneft’s daughter companies, also demanded that the vehicle should be no more than 7 meters long, to make sure that these could be transported via a regular trawl. The blade is

May 7, 2013. The net loss of the state-run Yugoria Insurance Company rose by over 9 times in 2012 and amounted to 2,803bn RUR, the insurer’s accounting report (drawn up in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) states. The total amount of accumulated insurance premiums shrank by 5% down to 8.685m RUR, while insurance payments increased by 7% and exceeded 5.8bn RUR, Insurance, a web portal, says. Thus the negative result from the insurance transactions amounted to 1.805bn RUR in 2012 against +979bn RUR a year earlier. In 2012, the Government of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous District,

May 7, 2013. ‘Such high-profile events are typically held in Moscow, but Moscow is a rather developed city as it is. This is why Yekaterinburg was chosen. An initiative like this can result in two things: firstly, this is the event per se, and secondly, this is the area’s development,’ Russian Vice Premier and Head of EXPO 2020 Coordination Committee Arkady Dvorkovitch said in an interview to the Italian media. ‘We decided on Yekaterinburg for a number of reasons. This is a city with a rich history, even from the industrial point of view; this city is related to the Revolution of 1917 events

May 7, 2013. A new five-euro bill was put into circulation on May 2. The bill retained the old design with the antique arch, but it grew brighter and was given additional forging-prevention features. For example, the digit 5 that indicates the value of the banknote turned from grey to emerald green; besides, a protective thread and a relief print were added, SKB-Bank reports. Yet the main difference is that you can see the water mark and a hologram with a portrait of the mythical princess Europe on it on the bill. The entire series of the new banknotes was named after the princess: larger and

May 7, 2013. The property income tax imposed on private individuals living in Sverdlovsk Region increased by 9% on average in 2012, Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Tax Service states. The scaling factor was determined by the regional government’s decree 9-PP dated January 11, 2012 and amounted to 51.9 and 53.6. This means the taxation base rose by 9% in 2012 on the previous year. As far as private individuals’ income tax is concerned, the taxation base stems from the total inventory cost of the assets subject to taxation that belong to a taxpayer and are located within a single

May 6, 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin asked his Plenipotentiary Representative in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh to draw up a development plan for Nizhniy Tagil; this happened when the President met with his representative and some members of the city community recently, RBC reports. ‘I propose the following: let us have a single plan for both the city and Sverdlovsk Region and point out the cases when federal support is going to be indispensable,’ Putin said. During the meeting, the local public representatives spoke about problems such as lighting the streets, the need for