Baltika beer is missing from most of Yekaterinburg’s cafes and pizzerias, including, for instance, MacPeak, Bullet, Passage, Tsentralniy Dvor, Proviant-21, McDonald’s Sbarro, Studio, Pizza-Nova, American Hot Pizza, Master Pizza, and Pizza Mia, all of which appear to prefer some other beer suppliers. In the meantime, Director of Tatischev café chain Maxim Myakishev recently spoke very unfavorably of Baltika beer’s quality.

‘We’ve used URSA Bank’s package offer and it helped us to use our time more effectively, to cut down on the accountants’ labor cost and to spend less on the certain services URSA Bank offers,’ says the director of Kompaniya REM Elena Sukhanova. URSA Bank came up with the new way of working with businesses, known as Business Packages, in March 2008. These packages provide for a set of services related to settlement and cash services and of special lending offers. The bank currently offers its partners four business packages: Acquaintance, Development, Leader, and Partner, each of which is

‘65% to 70% of Sverdlovsk Region Railways’ rolling equipment is depreciated right now. We use some electric trains that are forty years old, even though their lifetime normally comes to no more than twenty-eight years,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Vladimir Suprun said in the course of a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The fact that the equipment is worn out does not mean it’s not safe. We give all the cars and railway engines regular overhauls and carry our repairs. All this helps to use them longer. Some of our railway engines are worn out by 100%, but they can still work,’

‘No insurance payment can fully cover the cost of having a car repaired,’ director of Autoservice Vladimir Maryanov said to UrBC. The businessman reports there are some unwritten rules that the insurers and the claim adjusters adhere to: ‘No insurance company will ever work with an adjuster who proposes payment amounts that are greater than a certain figure. Experts look into the visible damage, yet there are some hidden defects that can only be detected later on. An experienced adjuster can often see these problems from the start, but they would normally ignore them. In case a car owner asks

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service took legal action against Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg and Kaliningrad-based KD-Avia for their alleged violation of the federal bill on the protection of competition, the spokesperson for the Service reports. The suit was initiated on July 29, 2008 upon Siberia Air Company’s request. Siberia claimed Koltsovo airport and KD-Avia avoided signing agreements on ground handling operations and airport servicing with the airline. Thus Koltsovo airport refused to cooperate with Siberia when the latter wanted to operate scheduled

According to the National Managers’ League, the profitability of unit investment trusts run by metallurgical enterprises dropped below zero on July 24-31, 2008. For one, the share price of Trubnaya Ploschad – Russian Metallurgy (Bank of Moscow Management Company) went down by 10.44%, that of Rus-Capital-Metallurgy (Rus-Capital Management Company) dropped by 9.18%, and that of BCS Metallurgy Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) decreased by 8.5%. At the same time, the share prices of CIT Fortis-Russian Metallurgy and Machine-Building (CIT Fortis Investments Management Company), Troika

102,974,900,000 RUR were directed to the federal budget from Sverdlovsk Region’s territory in January-May 2008, which exceeded the figures for January-May 2008 by 31.6%, the spokesperson for the regional division of the Federal Tax Service reports. Sverdlovsk Region is reported to have transferred 28,810,500,000 RUR worth of tax payments to the federal budget, which is 1.4 times better than a year earlier. As for the regional budget itself, Sverdlovsk Region received 40,141,500,000 RUR worth of tax and non-tax payments in January-May 2008, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by

‘It’s possible that VEK’s proposal to buy UralTransBank’s shares was an attempt to consolidate the bank’s assets in order to sell the business to a large strategic investor later. UralTransBank has ten subsidiaries and thirty-five offices, which makes it a strong regional financial structure,’ says Finam Management’s Alexander Osin. Ural Transport Bank’s Board of Directors suggested that the shareholders should accept VEK’s proposal to buy the bank’s ordinary registered uncertified shares. On June 28, 2008, VEK sent an obligatory notification to Uraltransbank, proposing to buy the bank’s

The Deposit Insurance Agency reports people deposited 11.9% more money in the Russian banks in the first half of the year compared to a year earlier. At the same time, some provincial banks did even better than the country’s average. The volume of money placed by private individuals with SKB-Bank, for instance, went up by 38% in January-June 2008.

Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee reports 127 car-washing installations are operating in the city at the moment, while the number of cars comes to 360 automobiles per every one hundred dwellers. To make sure the already-existing cars are properly taken care of, Yekaterinburg needs some 230 car washes. The only reason why there are still not enough installations is the shortage of available land allotments.

The Russian Federation public prosecution authorities report Russia and Italy actually don’t have any bilateral agreement on extraditing people suspected of criminal offenses. Russian authorities sent their request to extradite Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko on the basis of the 1957 European Convention (the convention was ratified and came into force in Italy in 1963). ‘Alexei Kalinichenko was detained in Italy on June 4, 2007, and on July 3, 2008, the General Prosecutor’s Office’s Administration for International Legal Cooperation sent their query to the Italian

‘Our latest campaign targeted at introducing some new ways of working with businesses (known as Business Packages for Legal Entities) has resulted in some good outcomes. The bank’s partners proved very interested in this innovational offer, so over 50% of business customers’ accounts in URSA Bank’s Tyumen branch have been switched to one or another business package by June 20, 2008. In addition, about seventy new legal entities have set up accounts there over the last three months. All of them chose our Acquaintance package,’ Director of URSA Bank’s Tyumen branch Olga Kalyuzhnaya said to

Timothy Sandusky, the new U.S. Consul General, arrived in Yekaterinburg last Friday. The spokesperson for the Consulate reports Mr. Sandusky has been working for the U.S. State Department since 1984, mainly holding offices related to political issues and consulate affairs. In 1990-1992, he was working in the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Besides, Mr. Sandusky was employed at diplomatic missions in Poland, Guyana, and Indonesia. Prior to his appointment as Yekaterinburg’s Consul General, the official was holding office in the U.S. State Department’s Analytical Section and in

‘It’s possible that VEK’s proposal to buy UralTransBank’s shares was an attempt to consolidate the bank’s assets in order to sell the business to a large strategic investor later. UralTransBank has ten subsidiaries and thirty-five offices, which makes it a strong regional financial structure,’ says Finam Management’s Alexander Osin. Ural Transport Bank’s Board of Directors suggested that the shareholders should accept VEK’s proposal to buy the bank’s ordinary registered uncertified shares. On June 28, 2008, VEK sent an obligatory notification to Uraltransbank, proposing to buy the bank’s

This year, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) intends to invest over $2bn in capital development. MMK’s BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov says this amount is comparable with the sum invested by the enterprise over a whole decade, that is, between 1996 and 2005. Besides, the two-billion-dollar figure comes to twice the amount directed to the company’s capital development last year. This large-scale investment is expected to result in greater production output, a wider range of products, better quality of produce, a bigger share of high-level processing goods, fewer material resource

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) got some of the best positions in Metallosnabzheniye I Sbyt’s rating of Russian metallurgical enterprises. The magazine’s new issue featured the rating of these companies’ performance in the first half of 2008. Their assessment is based on the customers’ applications and a survey of marketing experts. The magazine reports they used criteria like shipments volume, services, quality of produce, and meeting one’s contractual obligations as well as the factors that have influenced the home market since the beginning of the year. MMK is still one of the

SKB-Bank is to raise the interest rates it offers on its ruble deposit types by 1% (compared with June 30, 2008) on August 1, 2008. The bank’s Deposit Operations Director Denis Belogurov says this new offer involves their World Standard and Gold Standard deposit schemes. ‘The summer season is coming to an end, and people usually get more active business-wise around this time of the year. This is why we decided to raise the interest rates, reacting partly to ongoing inflation rate growth and trying to keep to our levelheaded interest-setting policy at the same time. SKB-Bank last went through

Ural Transport Bank’s Board of Directors suggested that the shareholders should accept VEK’s proposal to buy the bank’s ordinary registered uncertified shares. VEK sent an obligatory notification to Uraltransbank, proposing to buy the bank’s 109,447,465 ordinary registered uncertified shares for 6.61 RUR apiece. The bank must accept the proposal or come up with its terms within seventy days of receiving this notification. This compulsory purchase procedure was guaranteed by Bank Severnaya Kazna. At the moment, the company’s majority shareholder is Valeriy Zavodov, who owns a 37.77%

The Seventh Court of Appeals looked into the appeal placed by URSA Bank and satisfied the company’s claim on July 28, 2008. Thus the court’s ruling did not support Novosibirsk Region Court of Arbitration’s decision made on May 29, 2008 and Novosibirsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service’s provision made on March 31, 2008. The provision had to do with the administrative prosecution of URSA Bank for violating the advertising legislation. The Court of Appeals saw no violations of the existing legislation in the bank’s ads known as Numbers That Make You Happy and Visa Credit Card.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Uralfinance to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 79.35% (from 165.524 million RUR to 34.166 million RUR) in January-June 2008.