Governor of Chelyabinks Region Petr Sumin received a letter of thanks from the Russian Federation Minister for Sports, Tourism, and Youth Issues Vitaliy Mutko. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, the minister spoke very approvingly of the way the region’s athletes prepared for and performed at Russia’s fourth summer Student Olympics in Pensa this year. ‘I’d like to thank you, as well as the coaches, the sports players, and the championship coordinators for helping to bring up a generation of talented, sporty young people,’ the letter says. Pensa actually hosted contests in

Pnevmostroymashina placed its bankruptcy application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, the spokesperson for the court reports. The various creditors’ claims (including the claims laid by foreign companies) against this Finpromco’s member have been estimated at over 700 million RUR.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities carried out inspections of a number of local enterprises in order to check their compliance with the existing Labor Code. As a result, three companies fully paid off their workers’ wages between August 21, 2009 and September 1, 2009, the spokesperson for the authorities says. The sum in question amounted to 5.15 million RUR. For one, Uraltyazhstrubstroy eliminated its 3.978 million RUR worth of wage arrears (the workers’ wages for May and June 2009); Tavdinskiy plywood factory and Norvud paid off their 970,000 RUR and 209,000 RUR worth of

Ural Airlines will start operating the new Samara-Baku-Samara flights on September 25, 2009. These direct flights will be operated using an A320 aircraft every Friday. The plane takes off in Samara at 2:10 PM and arrives in Baku at 4:40 PM. The return flight’s departure time is 5:40 PM; the plane lands in Samara at 8:15 PM. The departure and arrival time is local. The cheapest tickets start at ?170 for a single ticket and at ?270 for a return one (excluding the fuel and other fees).

SKB-Bank Chairman of the Supervisory Board Vladimir Pukhov is going to take part in the 7th Russian Banks International Banking Forum; the forum, coordinated by Association Russia, will take place in Sochi on September 3-6, 2009, the bank’s press officer reports. The agenda of the forum covers the 11th banking conference on creating a stronger banking system in Russia despite the global recession, some round table discussions on various banking issues, and a meeting of the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe’s International Coordination Committee of Banking Associations. The forum will be

Bank UralSib was given one of the worst positions in Nextep’s August rating that monitored the Ural banks’ customers’ satisfaction. Nextep reports their monitoring involved seven banks based in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Perm. As for UralSib, the bank scored 66.9% out of 100% in the Objective Criteria category and 52.8% in the Subjective Criteria one. Nextep’s analysts believe this signifies the low level of customer satisfaction in terms of meeting/greeting routines, the bank’s products and services supply, and the employee creativity and their willingness to make the product appeal to

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps working on its prospective metallurgical production unit in the Republic of Turkey. Their Russian-Turkish joint venture, MMK Atakaş A. Ş. is about to complete the seaport on the company’s premises in Iskenderun, Turkey. According to MMK’s PR Department, the port will soon be capable of servicing up to 80,000-ton vessels, while the length of the wharf will allow for unloading of up to six ships at a time. For the time being, the port can be used to deliver building materials and equipment to the construction site, and once the construction of the

Yekaterinburg-based Bank Monetniy Dom is launching a Customer Week on September 21-27, 2009, the bank’s press officer reports. This special offer means that all of the bank’s customers (both private and business ones) can get serviced free of charge. For one, business customers can have an account opened for free and have a free subscription and a thirty-day trial of Bank-Client program; private individuals can have a Visa Electron issued at the bank free of charge. The special offer is dedicated to the bank’s 19th anniversary.

Rosaviation suggested that it would be best for KD Avia’s passengers to return the tickets they have bought. ‘KD Avia stopped offering tickets for sale on September 1, 2009; the carrier informed us that they were forced to stop operating due to lack of own funds. The state aviation authorities feel it is best for the passengers whose flights haven’t been operated yet to apply for a refund at the booking offices,’ Rosaviation reports. According to the agency, the passengers whose flights have already been operated one way and who now need to fly back will be transferred onto other Russian

Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation is going to look into the causes of financial troubles that hit twelve Russian banks that had earlier undergone financial recovery procedures, the Agency’s PR Center informed an UrBC reporter. ‘The inspections of all these twelve insolvency-fighting banks have been planned in advance. In the cases of AKB Electronika, AKB MZB, and KB Moskovskiy Kapital (all of which underwent partial financial recovery, handed their assets and liabilities over to a healthier bank, and then applied for bankruptcy) we are going to investigate why this has happened. In

Starting October 2009, Russian Standard Bank’s customers will have to pay for the details of their accounts they receive in the mail, even though the mailings used to be free earlier, Kommersant reports. The monthly commission comes to 15 RUR; at the same time, all those willing to receive these details via e-mail can use the service for free. Meanwhile, Home Credit and Finance Bank started charging its customers 15 RUR a month for the same service as early as June 16, 2009. The bank reports the commission is necessary to make up for the post office expenses.

The Moscow Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Ural branch insists on having UralOtel’s property arrested; the estate in question comprises UralOtel at 23 Khomyakov St., Yekaterinburg, Atlantic Hotel, and Yekaterininskaya Hotel. The bank placed a corresponding claim with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court after UralOtel’s loan agreement debt amounted to more than $3.76m. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff’s claims and arrested the building at 9 Lenin Ave. as well as a 1,166-square-meter land allotment. The next court hearing has been scheduled for September 9, 2009, the

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) looked into the results of its environmental management system’s performance in the first half of 2009. This system was actually certified for compliance with the international ISO 14001: 2004 standards. According to MMK’s PR Department, the enterprise managed to reduce its gross emission rates by 9.4% against the first half of 2008. Then, the company’s filtering and recycling facilities processed 3.2 million tons of metallurgical slag into 222,000 tons of metal. What is more, MMK reused 760,000 tons of waste for sintering mix and directed over 3

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) looked into the results of its environmental management system’s performance in the first half of 2009. This system was actually certified for compliance with the international ISO 14001: 2004 standards. According to MMK’s PR Department, the enterprise managed to reduce its gross emission rates by 9.4% against the first half of 2008. Then, the company’s filtering and recycling facilities processed 3.2 million tons of metallurgical slag into 222,000 tons of metal. What is more, MMK reused 760,000 tons of waste for sintering mix and directed over 3

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service declared that MRSK Urala and the Regional Network Company were guilty of violating Article 11 (part 1, paragraph 5) of the Federal Competition Protection Act, the spokesperson for the Service reports. The offense consisted in the two parties’ colluding over imposing unappealing terms of electricity network access on GSK-50. Namely, GSK-50 had to pay for the hookup of Regional Network Company’s facilities to those of MRSK Urala, their intermediary. The Service’s regional division chose not to institute legal proceedings against

‘Absolut Bank is trying to get the debts from Pnevmostroymashina; these debts stem from two loan agreements that we have. The sum we are claiming comes from these two agreements’ principal debt, the interest, and the late payment interests on the principal debt and the interest,’ AKB Absolut Bank’s Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board Anatoly Maksakov said to an UrBC reporter. Meanwhile, Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is now looking into the claim laid by the bank’s Yekaterinburg division against Pnevmostroymashina and PSM-Gidravlika; the bank insists on being paid 217.7 million RUR.

KD Avia Airlines stopped offering tickets for sale and informed Rosaviation that they might stop operating any flights in the near future. According to Kommersant, this decision probably stems from the fact that the airline never received the 4 billion RUR of governmental aid that had been allocated to the carrier as early as July 2009. Moreover, Kaliningrad Region authorities apparently failed to carry out an additional share issue for the airline. KD Avia actually operates a number of flights from Yekaterinburg to Kaliningrad. The carrier initially announced a halt in the flight operations

Evraz Group, the mining and metallurgical giant, sustained major losses in the first half of 2009 after a number of payments had to be written off, Rosbalt reports. The enterprise’s net loss amounted to $999m against $2.04bn worth of profits in the first half of 2008. ‘The ongoing economic recession has affected our investments and infrastructure development projects rather badly; what is more, the demand for steel has gone down on our key markets,’ Rosbalt quoted Evraz President Alexander Frolov as saying. The company’s revenues nosedived by 57% in the six months of 2009, that is, against

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin signed a decree providing some budget-based loans to the town of Kopeisk and to Uvelskiy district. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Kopeisk received 43 million RUR to complete its kindergarten meant for 220 children. Uvelskiy district was given 19.6 million RUR to make all the necessary social benefit payments. These budget-based loans are provided by the Governor for a three-year period, with the interest rate coming to one-quarter of the Central Bank’s refinancing rate (as of the day the loan agreement was signed). The first such loan

Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) made Bank24.ru face administrative liability for violating the existing advertising legislation, the spokesperson for the service reports. The division took legal action against the bank on June 3, 2009 after a complaint had been placed by a Yekaterinburg dweller. The applicant claimed he had received two advertisements in the form of text messages from Bank24.ru between February 13, 2009 and February 17, 2009. However, the man never provided the bank with any written consent to receiving such ads. On July 2, 2009, the FAS’s