UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2019. Rosatom’s Chelyabinsk Region-based member enterprise Mayak Production Association intends to start recycling Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station’s spent fuel in 2024, Vestnik Mayaka refers to the company’s Director-General Mikhail Pokhlebayev as stating. Now the spent fuel coming from Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station’s oldest AMB 100 and AMB 200 reactor-based power-generating units started entering Mayak as early as 2017. This was the key factor in getting these power-generating units finally decommissioned after they got shut down in 1981 and 1989.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2019. Ural Airlines are now offering their customers No Luggage and Luggage Included tickets on the flights operated from Moscow Region’s Zhukovsky Airport to Prague, Rome, Paris, and Nice. Similar options will soon be available on the flights operated from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to Montpellier and Bordeaux, the air carrier’s press service reports. No-meal-and-no-luggage ticket allows the airline to cut flight maintenance costs at their airports of departure, which, in its turn, means Ural Airlines can offer cheaper tickets and make air travel more

UrBC, Moscow, February 11, 2019. According to Philip Morris International (PMI), Russia’s tobacco market shrank by 8.4% by the end of 2018, down to 238.1 billion units. The company’s share of the Russian market rose by 0.6% and reached 28.4%, Prime refers to PMI’s annual report as stating. At the same time, Philip Morris supplied 68 billion cigarettes to Russia last year, which was 6.1% less than in 2017. As for the last quarter of 2018, the amount of cigarettes imported to Russia rose by 1.3% and came to 19.3 billion units, the company says. The country’s tobacco market declined by 8% in the

UrBC, Moscow, February 11, 2019. The Bank of Russia decided to keep the key rate at 7.75% per annum, the bank’s official website states. The Board of Directors’ meeting took place on February 8, 2019. The bank reports that the annual inflation rate remained within the lower end of the expected range in January 2019. At the same time, both households’ and businesses’ inflation expectations were on the rise. The 2% increase in the VAT proved only a moderate contributing factor in the growing consumer prices last month. ‘The effect of the VAT increase on inflation can be fully assessed no sooner

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, February 11, 2019. A branch of the International Commercial Arbitration Tribunal at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation will open in Chelyabinsk in the course of a solemn ceremony on February 22, the South Urals Chamber of Commerce & Industry reports. The International Commercial Arbitration Court (ICAC) is an alternative to the law-court processing of economic disputes involving Russian and non-Russian legal entities and sole traders. President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Sergey Katyrin, Governor of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2019. MegaFon is now using double-duty pole structures as supports for its base stations in order to improve signal quality and/or introduce 4G connection at newly commissioned apartment buildings in Sverdlovsk Region. These measures improved the connection quality for 15,000 locals in the last two months, the company’s press service reports. Similar construction projects used to take twice as long to build and to cost 33% more to launch in the past. ‘Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Kamensk Uralsky, Aramil, Revda, Sysert, and Kashino are the first Sverdlovsk Region’s towns

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) is embarking on a digital upgrades campaign this year; introducing the advanced Solid-State Array by Pure Storage into the bank’s IT infrastructure was the first step on the way to becoming more productive and reliable and to cutting equipment-related costs. The UBRD decided on the Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and the five-year repayment period (in equal installments) as the most sensible cost-optimizing option, the bank’s press service reports. ‘The UBRD keeps implementing its strategy to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2019. KORTROS Group intends to get 286,000 m2 of new housing commissioned in 2019, which will be 12% more than one year previously. The plan covers a number of new apartment buildings in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy, which is now one of the largest urban development projects in Europe, the Group’s press service reports. ‘The apartment buildings and social infrastructure facilities in Akademicheskiy all have the modern engineering appliances, including ‘smart home’ systems. The systems in question allow home owners to control their utilities and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2019. Ural Airlines will now be operating Yekaterinburg-Prague flights six times a week, the air carrier’s press service reports. In addition to the regular flights U6 701/702 available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, you can now also fly to Prague on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Ural Airlines also introduced Zhukovsky (Moscow Region)-Prague flights in December 2018. You can book your flight on the company website www.uralairlines.com, using Ural Airlines mobile app, over the phone +7-800-7700-262, and at booking offices.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) produced a performance report for 2018 on its Children Believe in Miracles Charity Project, the bank’s press service reports. The bank complemented re-adjustment group therapy with personal development plan for every single child last year; the plan covers steps to promote self-actualization, job counseling support, and outlook-expanding courses. Fifteen children and teenagers aged 12-17 from the local social service center took job orientation tests and received personal development plans; many

UrBC, Moscow, February 7, 2019. Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems (FGC UES) Chair of the Supervisory Board Andrei Murov is now a member of the Russian Engineering Union’s executive committee/bureau. Murov will also chair a new committee on energy efficiency technologies, FGC UES Western Siberia’s PR & Media Group reports. The decisions regarding Murov’s new appointments and memberships were made at the Union’s bureau and the League for Assisting Defense Enterprises of Russia’s latest joint session. The new committee’s goal is to promote higher energy efficiency in the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 7, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) supplied nearly 550,000,000 kg of metal goods to customers in the car-making industry last year; so far, this has been the best result the company’s ever achieved, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. The plant supplied 22,000,000 kg more goods to customers in 2018 compared with the year 2017. Car manufacturers have long been MMK’s top priority partners, so the company has been investing in automobile body sheet production facilities as part of the national import substitution program for many years now.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 7, 2019. Sverdlovsk Region’s court officers imposed an international travel ban on 16,000 local residents in January 2019. Together, these people owe around RUB 3 billion in tax payments, child support money, and other debts. According to the Federal Service of Court Officers’ Sverdlovsk Region division, 600 people who were informed about their debts and travel bans made RUB 74m worth of repayments at once. All in all, nearly 100,000 Sverdlovsk Region’s residents can’t leave the country due to debts right now. Their accumulated debt amounts to RUB 82.138 billion;

UrBC, Moscow, February 7, 2019. 38% of Russians are unhappy with the state’s current trash pickup and waste disposal practices, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center’s survey findings indicate. 58% of respondents say they find the situation satisfactory and 38% of those surveyed say they are unhappy about it. When it comes to cities with population of more than one million people and towns with population under 100,000 people, the number of dissatisfied respondents comes to as much as 40%; in towns with population of 100,000 to 500,000, the figure is 41%. Apart from this, 30% of

UrBC, Moscow, February 7, 2019. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested extending the capital amnesty deadline for those taking their money back to Russian accounts by another year; the proposal was made during the Business Russia Forum on February 6. The current deadline has been set at March 1, 2019. Private individuals will face no liability for certain economic offenses or non-compliance with currency legislation or tax law. It could be expedient to extend the capital amnesty deadline for the Russian nationals taking their money back to Russia by another year at least, the President

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 6, 2019. Rosatom’s Yekaterinburg-based member enterprise SverdNIIkhimmash and NCCP Engineering signed a contract to develop project documentation for; manufacture; deliver; and carry out supervised installation of the equipment for transuranian element re-extraction at Siberian Chemical Combine in Tomsk Region, SverdNIIkhimmash’s press service reports. The equipment is scheduled to get delivered to customer at the start of 2020. The set of equipment in question is meant for the treatment of liquid radioactive used decontamination fluids coming from the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 6, 2019. According to MegaFon, companies operating in the Urals are now focusing more closely on mobile device security: the number of businesses that had their devices scanned with MegaFon’s anti-hacker app rose by 57% this year so far compared with lsat year, the company’s press service reports. ‘Nearly 2,700 corporate mobile devices got scanned with our Antivzlom App in the last month alone. Every one in two appliances is registered in Sverdlovsk Region. A user definitely needs virus protection, but some smartphone-friendly antivirus software is no longer

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 6, 2019. Ural Airlines are now operating more flights from Blagoveshchensk to Yekaterinburg and Moscow and back. According to the air carrier’s press service, the extra flights will get operated twice a week between February 14 and March 24, 2019: U6 30 Blagoveshchensk-Yekateirnburg-Moscow will be available on Fridays and Saturdays; U6 29 Moscow-Yekaterinburg-Blagoveshchensk will be available on Thursdays and Fridays. Additionally, you can also still fly on the daily U6300/299 flights. The extra options are meant to make traveling even more convenient. Prices

UrBC, Moscow, February 6, 2019. Russia’s Finance Ministry intends to direct RUB 194 billion to foreign currency purchases in February 2019. The purchases will be made between February 7 and March 6, 2019, with the average daily purchase amount at the equivalent of RUB 9.7 billion, the ministry’s website states. This specific amount of money has been allocated for the purpose this month based on the prediction that the extra oil and gas revenues in the national budget will amount to RUB 203.6 billion in February 2019 (given that the actual current oil prices are higher than the

UrBC, Moscow, February 6, 2019. AO Mercedes-Benz RUS, Mercedes’s official representative for the Russian market, is calling off 7,011 automobiles (Mercedes-Benz 205 and 253), Rosstandart reports. Subject to product recall are the cars sold in 2017 and 2018: there’s a possibility that the passenger front airbag status might not get displayed correctly on the operation panel. To deal with the problem, the Audio 20 software package needs to get updated. All the adjustments will be done at no extra cost to the car owners.