April 3, 2013. Vehicles manufactured by Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) are going to take part in the Victory Day Parade in Revolution Square for the 9th time this year. The caterpillar antiquities were restored at the plant and debuted during the 2005 V-day Parade, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press service reports. The show of the historic samples of combat vehicles will open with the legendary T-34. It was exactly the ChTZ-produced T-34 tank that was used by the 63 Chelyabinsk Brigade, a part of the Ural Voluntary Tank Corps that joined its first battle near

April 3, 2013. The overhaul of a drill pipe production line at Pipe-Rolling Shop 2 has been successfully completed at Sinara Pipe Plant (SinTZ, a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company), the company’s press service reports. Some multi-faceted repair jobs aimed at restoring the technological characteristics of the equipment have been completed within two weeks. The scheduled and preventive repairs were combined with the upgrade of the welding line, which will make it possible for the company to make pipes with longer lock parts. The installation of the ultrasound control unit for testing the

April 3, 2013. Holding the Russian-Kazakh 10th Inter-Regional Cooperation Forum in Yekaterinburg will give a new impulse to the development of business relations between the Republic of Kazakhstan and Sverdlovsk Region. This upcoming forum was discussed at Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev’s meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Russia Galym Orazbakov on April 2, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. The Ambassador said that he had a chance to look at the potential forum sites during his

April 3, 2013. ‘Quite a few Russians are true patriots of their native towns and are absolutely positive that their city is the best in the country. It is now possible to find out whether this is true with the help of the Kommersant. Sekret Firmy magazine that came up with a rating of Russia’s Top100 Best Cities,’ SKB-Bank says. The rating picked the candidates out of cities with population of over 100,000 people that provided the magazine with data on their municipal budget. In order to indentify the best city, analysts used 13 criteria grouped around five different indices: the financial

April 3, 2013. VUZ-Bank is now offering customers gold and silver souvenir coins dedicated to the upcoming Sochi Olympics and the ones that have the Gold Chervonetz-Seedman theme that could serve as an investment. The Sochi 2014 coins are released in the run-up to the 222nd Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014; they have an unordinary rectangular shape and feature the mascot of the games, a leopard. The series consists of three kinds of coins: the silver ones, with face value of 3 RUR and weight of 31.1 grams, and the gold ones with face value of 50 RUR and 100 RUR and weight of 7.78 grams and

April 2, 2013. A staff meeting was held at Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s head plant in order to check how well the existing collective agreement is complied with. The enterprise’s Executive Director Vladimir Roshchupkin spoke very highly of the Uralvagonzavod team’s performance in 2012. The company set some records in terms of railway carriage production that beat both Uralvagonzavod’s previous achievements and those of the entire industry. Alongside with the increased output, the company’s mechanical assembly department grew as well. What is more, the state defense

April 2, 2013. In case Yekaterinburg wins the right to host the EXPO 2020 exhibition, a 560-hectare land allotment will be provided for the site. The eight pavilions will host the stands of Russia’s eight federal districts. In addition, one All-Russian pavilion will be created, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev said in his interview to Voice of Russia radio station. The 560-hectare allotment is located within 2.5km of the city center. The allotment needs transport and engineering infrastructure; about 10% of the site is now used by dacha owners, there is also an impromptu beach

April 2, 2013. April 1 isn’t just the Fool’s Day, it is also the birthday of the dollar symbol. According to the most popular etymology, the $ sign was first used by the New Orleans-based businessman Oliver Pollock in 1773, SKB-Bank’s press service says. The United States used to rely on the Spanish piasters heavily at the time; the traditional abbreviation for the currency that was used in all the documents was PS. It is believed that Pollock started using an overlaying combination of P and S in his book entries and later on tried to save time by using an S crossed by two vertical lines. The

April 2, 2013. ChTPZ Group recently shipped its first-generation, self-developed OCTGs with premium threaded joints to Gazpromneft-Khantos, a daughter company of Gazpromneft. In February and March, the customer received about 1,200 tons of casings with the diameter of 168.3mm and wall width 8.94mm and 10.59mm, made of Grade D and E steel. The goods will be used for building some new oil producing wells in Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region-Yugra, the company’s press service reports. Pipes with premium threaded joints are ChTPZ Group’s innovational development. This produce can boast much

April 2, 2013. Valentina Matvienko, the Speaker for the Russian Soviet of the Federation, and Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Alexander Zhukov assured the BIE inspection committee members on March 29 that there existed total and unanimous political agreement as to promoting Yekaterinburg as the candidate city for hosting EXPO exhibition in 2020. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev took part in the Moscow meetings, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports, ‘You’ve already meet all of Russia’s political leaders and can now be sure that this is

April 1, 2013. The region’s Ministry of International & Foreign Economic Relations’ Board held a meeting dedicated to the development of Sverdlovsk Region’s international and foreign economic relations in 2012 and to the goals set for 2013-2014, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Department reports. Head of the Ministry of International & Foreign Economic Relations’ Foreign Economic Activity & Investment Department Andrei Sobolev said in the course of this meeting that setting up new diplomatic and trade representations of other countries in the region

April 1, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a new flight destination: starting May 26, the company will be offering its passengers a flight from Moscow to Nizhnevartovsk and back. Nizhnevartovsk is a major industrial city that serves as a hub for all the oil and gas enterprises as well as other kinds of industrial companies. Thanks to Ural Airlines, trips to Moscow will become both more affordable and more convenient. The flight will be operated at 08:50 AM every day except for Saturday; the cheapest one-way tickets are available for 8,000 RUR (excluding the fees; the price is good as of March

April 1, 2013. Sputnik Hockey Club, sponsored by Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation, completed its Supreme Hockey League 2012/2013 season. The Nizhniy Tagil hockey players fought hard in the quarter-final but were finally defeated by the Voronezh-based Buran (3:4), Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. For the first time over the last six years, Sputnik has made it to the second stage of the play-off. The quarter-final matches were limited to four victories, and after two initial matches (which Sputnik hosted as the team that did better in the regular games)

April 1, 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with the members of the BIE Inspecting Committee on March 28 to talk about Yekaterinburg’s application for the right to host World Universal Exhibition EXPO in 2020. The meeting was also attended by Chairman of EXPO 2020 Committee Arkady Dvorkovitch and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev, the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. Putin assured the BIE inspectors that Russia would take all of the bureau’s recommendations into account in case Yekaterinburg wins the right to host the

April 1, 2013. The Mid-Urals have been developing unevenly: Yekaterinburg is heading forth quite fast, but the modernization programs for Nizhniy Tagil are still not totally complete, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his meeting with Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev in Sochi on March 28. ‘As for Yekaterinburg, its development pace is quite satisfactory: the city is growing better in terms of appearance and in terms of the quality of service it offers. However, it is quite obvious that a lot has to be done in other large enough towns and cities in the area,’ the President

March 29, 2013. The company’s first pneumatic arm with the capacity of 100kg was installed at Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s head plant. The device, which was installed at the rubber goods and electrodes department within the framework of the company’s large-scale technical upgrades program, is meant for lifting rolls of wire needed for the welding production purposes onto the rewinding cassettes, the corporation’s press service reports. The rubber goods and electrodes department used to produce 150 to 160 tons of wire a month last year. To improve its performance,

March 29, 2013. A museum dedicated to Ernst Neizvestny will be set up in Yekaterinburg. The regional authorities believe it will gradually turn into a tourist Mecca for people from all over the world, Sverdlovsk Region’s Culture Minister Pavel Krekov said at a press conference today. The new museum will be housed at 14 Dobrolyubov St in Petelin Residence, which is actually on the local cultural heritage list. The two-storey building is only fit for 40 visitors at a time, according to Krekov. By early April, the remodeling will be complete, so the museum employees will be able to start

March 29, 2013. A subsidiary of Saint Petersburg State Hermitage Museum will be set up in Yekateirnburg, Sverdlovsk Region’s Culture Minister Pavel Krekov said at a press conference today. ‘This decision resulted from Russian Minister for Culture Vladimir Medinsky’s visit to Yekaterinburg. The plans to introduce a subsidiary in the Urals’ capital were also supported by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev,’ Krekov said. ‘In addition to Yekaterinburg, the Hermitage subsidiaries will only be created in very few Russian cities, including Moscow,’ the minister added. He said the project

March 29, 2013. Russian Railways (RZhD) is going to present its calculations on the cost of building a network of high-speed railway links around Russia to the Russian Government in the second half of 2013. The network is supposed to develop along three main directions, the company’s First Vice President Alexander Misharin explained in the course of Passenger Forum 2013, RBC reports. ‘Some economic calculations have shown that Moscow-Saint Petersburg link, Moscow-Nizhniy Novgorod-Kazan-Yekaterinburg link (including Perm, Ufa, and Chelyabinsk), and the Moscow-Rostov-on-Don-Adler one (including

March 29, 2013. On March 21, 2013, UBT-Uralvagonzavod and SPLAV Scientific & Production Association demanded that a new Director-General be elected at Motovilikhinskiye Zavody, UBT-Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. The two enterprises sent their joint demand to hold an extraordinary general meeting to the plant. They insist that the two items on the agenda be the early termination of the current DG’s powers and electing the new head for the enterprise.