A twenty-five-year-old woman was detained by the police in Fan Fan shopping mall in Yekaterinburg on Thursday. The woman, who is a Russian subject, had fifty grams of heroin on her, says Head of Sverdlovsk Region Administration of the Federal Drug Turnover Control Service’s Information and PR Group Elena Issayeva. The detainee claimed that a thirty-year-old woman had sold the drugs to her. This person was also detained in the mall. Later on, the police officers inspected the suspected dealer’s apartment in Yasnaya St. and found and confiscated nine packages and two plastic containers full of

‘The management of Bank VTB decided to lay off about 10% of actual employees and cut down on vacancies in both the head office and the subsidiaries. The decision regarding the redundancies was made within the framework of the bank’s expense-cutting program adopted by the Board in November 2008. Under this program, a ban on taking in any more staff has already been introduced,’ the bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary reported. ‘The redundancies will be made in strict accordance with the Russian labor laws. The laid-off workers will receive all the legally guaranteed payments and compensations and

‘At the end of 2009, there were eighty-nine developers in Sverdlovsk Region working on 154 projects with the total area of 1.3 million sq m. About 7,140 participatory share construction agreements worth about 43 billion RUR were signed. This is a lot of money that we can be proud of. However, there also exist a lot of private participatory share investors who have been deceived by their developers,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said at a meeting in Yekaterinburg. ‘Unfortunately, these people don’t always get enough attention to their problem, even though the authorities

The public activists of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, have finished collecting signatures for the petition to the Russian Federation Public Prosecutor’s Office, the President of the Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev’s Administration, and Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) that calls for looking into the business activity of Russian Standard Bank. The petition was designed by Nizhniy Tagil branch of Russia’s Young Lawyers, a pressure group. The branch’s head Evgeniy Ryakin says 133 signatures were collected within one week, so the petition will soon be sent to the

The top executive of MEGA Yekaterinburg Michael Nilsson has recently left office. The spokesperson for the shopping mall reports Nilsson was appointed the company’s Regional Director. Lilia Nenasheva, former Deputy CEO and Marketing Director, is going to become the new head of MEGA Yekaterinburg. MEGA opened its first store in Yekaterinburg in October 2006.

Deputy Head of the Russian Federation Government Igor Sechin is going to chair a governmental meeting dedicated to the country’s metallurgical business development in Yekaterinburg on February 19, 2010, Head of Pipe Industry Development Fund Alexander Deyneko announced at a briefing on Wednesday. Deyneko said the meeting would be devoted to the industrial branch’s post-recession development and the measures that could help upgrade the business, RIA Novosti reports.

Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities and Ural State Assay Surveillance Inspection detected some violations in the way OOO Brilliant and ZAO Supermarket Kirovskiy dealt in precious metals and stones, the spokesperson for the prosecution authorities reports. The inspection of Brilliant revealed that, despite the existing legal norms, the company did not inform Rosfinmonitoring (the state watchdog responsible for counteracting laundering proceeds from criminal activity and terrorist financing) of its transactions. The public prosecution authorities found out that Brilliant failed

A twenty-five-year-old woman was detained by the police in Fan Fan shopping mall in Yekaterinburg on Thursday. The woman, who is a Russian subject, had fifty grams of heroin on her, says Head of Sverdlovsk Region Administration of the Federal Drug Turnover Control Service’s Information and PR Group Elena Issayeva. The detainee claimed that a thirty-year-old woman had sold the drugs to her. This person was also detained in the mall.

‘The management of Bank VTB decided to lay off about 10% of actual employees and cut down on vacancies in both the head office and the subsidiaries. The decision regarding the redundancies was made within the framework of the bank’s expense-cutting program adopted by the Board in November 2008. Under this program, a ban on taking in any more staff has already been introduced,’ the bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary reported. ‘The economic recession made it necessary to work more effectively, so some of our processes were improved thanks to the new operational and business methods and launch of

The top executive of MEGA Yekaterinburg Michael Nilsson has recently left office. The spokesperson for the shopping mall reports Nilsson was appointed the company’s Regional Director. Lilia Nenasheva, former Deputy CEO and Marketing Director, is going to become the new head of MEGA Yekaterinburg. MEGA opened its first store in Yekaterinburg in October 2006.

The net profit of OAO VTB Severo-Zapad (Bank VTB’s daughter enterprise) decreased by 1.6 times in 2009, that is, down to 3.8 billion RUR, the bank reports. In 2008, the company’s net profit amounted to 6.04 billion RUR.

The management of OAO Bank24.ru (Life Group’s asset) announced the potential closing down of the bank’s subsidiaries in Yekaterinburg. ‘What matters to us is that a subsidiary should make a profit. If this is not the case, it’s actually easier to close it down and strengthen another one with the released resources,’ Bank24.ru’s Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board Boris Dyakonov said at a recent press conference. Boris Dyakonov did not specify which offices were to stop operating.

The building of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport’s mail division has been closed down for thirty days because of fire safety violations, reports the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s Administration of the Federal Court Officers Service. On February 8, 2010, the court officer of Oktyabrskiy district’s division started the enforcement proceedings on the basis of Yekaterinburg’s Oktyabrskiy district court’s ruling; the court declared that the airport was to stop using the building. So Russian Post Federal State Unitary Enterprise is not operating on the airport’s premises at the moment.

Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled that Bank of Moscow violated Article 11 (part 1, paragraphs 1 and 5) of the Competition Protection Act, the spokesperson for the division reports. The legal proceedings were instituted against the bank when it was suspected of violating the antimonopoly agreement. ‘The offense consisted in the fact that Bank of Moscow adopted a certain order of issuing consumer loans, car loans, and mortgages to private individuals. Also, the bank signed certain agreements with fourteen Yekaterinburg-based insurers; the implementation of

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin took part in the government meeting on economic development and integration in Moscow. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Head of the Russian Federation Government Igor Shuvalov. The agenda covered issues related to the socioeconomic development and industrial diversification of towns with only one major employer (usually a big industrial enterprise). The Governor presented his multi-faceted investment plan for the development of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region. According to the project, the town’s economy will receive 124 billion RUR worth of

‘We are currently on the look-out for the future owner of President Business Center located at the intersection of Boris Yeltsin St. and Chelyuskintsev St. We are aware of the so-called postponed demand brought about by the economic situation at the moment. At the same time, our main goal is to fill the building with tenants,’ RED Management Company’s Marketing & Development Director Vladilen Stolyarov said in the course of a round table discussion on the launch of new business centers in Yekaterinburg. Now the estimated area of the building comes to about 34,000 sq m; the company

‘The third extension to Antey Business Center will be divided into two smaller sections. The fifty-four-storey tower with the area of 75,000 sq m is expected to be launched in October 2010,’ the owner of Antey Business Center Andrei Gavrilovskiy reported in the course of a round table discussion on the launch of new business centers in Yekaterinburg. Yet the original deadline for the launch of the third extension expired as early as 2008. ‘It was decided that the eleven-storey building that was supposed to have been a hotel will be converted to an office. It is not too late to change one’s

OOO Omega Spirits Group is now on the list of companies that have overdue debt resulting from their bank loans. This news was announced at Sverdlovsk Region Government business support committee’s recent meeting. The meeting was chaired by Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin. Omega Spirits Group representative explained that the wholesaler fully paid off its loans to four banks and was able to come to debt restructuring agreements with the rest of them. The only exception to this trend was ZAO Bank VEFK-Ural that was recently declared bankrupt. Anatoly Gredin asked the

The sales of new passenger cars on the Russian market plunged by 37% in January 2010 compared with January 2009 and amounted to 74,090 vehicles, the European Business Association’s car manufacturers committee reports. The sales of AvtoVAZ-produced automobiles declined by 41% and reached 17,310 vehicles. General Motors sold 54% less this January, that is, 6,420 vehicles. The sales of Volkswagen decreased by 22% down to 5,150 vehicles, those of Ford, PSA Peugeot-Citroen, and Toyota dropped by 64%, 51%, and 54%, respectively, and down to 3,150, 2,070, and 3,730 vehicles, respectively. GAZ

‘It’s true that all of the luxury segment car centers had a hard time during the recession. Porsche’s sales, for one, plummeted by over 30% last year compared to 2007 and 2008. We sold about 120 cars in 2007-2008 but only 50 last year. However, things are getting better now, with sales actually going up a bit,’ Director of Porsche Center Yekaterinburg Alexander Lebedev said to UrBC. ‘Porsche cars are obviously enjoying demand again. The local dwellers are mainly interested in Porsche Cayenne at the moment. Also, the year 2010 should be a promising one for the new Porsche Panamera,’ Lebedev