UrBC, Moscow, January 24, 2019. Following a meeting of Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry representatives with Director of Denezhkin Kamen National Park in Moscow, Head of the Department of State Policy and Regulation in the Area of Development of Protected Areas Alexei Titovsky contacted Rosprirodnadzor’s administration, asking to look closely into the situation in Sverdlovsk Region’s north, Zhivoy Shemur’s press service reports. The meeting was dedicated to environmental problems in the north of Sverdlovsk Region and to Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company’s asset Svyatogor polluting

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2019. MegaFon Ural now offers its business customers a range of online freight-tracking options, including temperature control and notifications in case a package gets dropped or opened. MegaFon is the first telecommunication service provider to offer local companies its Freight Control package, the company’s press service reports. The freight-tracking options are a good solution for international freight forwarding as well as for domestic shipments, including multimodal forwarding schemes. A special-purpose, autonomous GPS/GLONASS/LBS tracker inside the cargo

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2019. The average amount of a mortgage loan getting issued in Sverdlovsk Region rose by 8.2% in the last quarter of 2018 compared with one year earlier, and thus reached RUB 2,101,402, the National Credit History Bureau’s report states. In Russia on the whole, the average mortgage amount rose by 17.5% in the course of one year and thus reached RUB 2.34 million. Among the forty Russian constituencies with the largest mortgage markets, Moscow, with its average mortgage amount at RUB 4.61 million, was No.1, followed by Moscow Region (RUB 3.46 million), Saint

UrBC, Moscow, January 24, 2019. The Bank of Russia purchased RUB 24.23 billion worth of foreign currency for the Finance Ministry on Monday, January 21, the bank’s reports indicate. The Finance Ministry intends to purchase RUB 265.8bn worth of foreign currency on January 15-February 6, 2019, with the average daily amount at RUB 15.6bn. The foreign currency is getting purchased with the purpose of extracting the additional oil and gas revenues and adding more money to the National Welfare Fund.

UrBC, Moscow, January 23, 2019. Russia’s inflation rate rose from 4.3% in 2018 to 4.7% a year on January 14, 2019, the Economic Development Ministry’s report on inflation in January 2019 indicates. ‘Two inflation-boosting factors came into effect in January 2019, namely, the VAT increase from 18% to 20% and an increase in the cost of utilities by 1.7% starting January 1. As a result, the inflation figures stood at 0.65% on January 1-14, 2019 compared with 0.21% a year earlier. As of January 14, the inflation rate was estimated to speed up to 4.7%,’ the report states. The ministry’s analysts

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2019. MegaFon Ural’s subscribers are among the country’s most independent people, MegaFon believes: every one in four of My Account users on the company website is based in the Urals, the company’s press service reports. 2.2 million locals prefer to deal with their telecom issues online, with peak on-site presence time between noon and 2 PM. Every one in five users (18%) belongs in the 46-60 age group, while 35% of users are people in the 26-35 age group. The share of those in the 18-22 age bracket comes to 22%. My Account is mostly used to look into one’s

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, January 23, 2019. ChelPipe Group and the All-Russian National Military Patriotic Social Movement Association (Yunarmiya) signed a cooperation agreement. The paper was signed by the Group’s Director-General Boris Kovalenkov and Head of Yunarmiya’s HQ, Hero of Russia, space pilot Roman Romanenko. According to the Group’s press service, the goal is to work together on the initiatives in the field of military training and patriotic values courses for children and teenagers, support physical education and sports projects, and promote and popularize the idea of the Russian Army

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2019. Ural Airlines are now offering their customers tickets for Yekaterinburg-Kaliningrad-Yekaterinburg flights. Flight U6 403/404 will get operated every Monday and Friday starting from March 22, 2019. According to the air carrier’s press service, the departure time (Yekaterinburg) is 1 PM on Mondays and 11 AM on Fridays; the departure time for the return trip (from Kaliningrad) is 2:40 PM on Mondays and 12:40 PM on Fridays. Prices start from RUB 6,000 and 8,500 (one way). The flights will get operated between March 22, 2019 and December 31, 2019. You can

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2019. Ural Airlines are now selling tickets for Moscow-Mumbai flights; the very first flight has been scheduled for March 31, 2019; from then on, the flight will get operated four times a week (on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (there)/on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays (back). According to the air carrier’s press service, the departure (Moscow/Domodedovo Airport) and arrival (Mumbai) time is 7:10 PM and 4:45 AM, respectively. For Mumbai-Moscow flight, the departure and arrival time is 5:50 AM and 10:50 AM, respectively. The flights

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, January 22, 2019. Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky hosted a meeting with M.I. Glinka Chelyabinsk State Academy Opera & Ballet Theater’s Board of Trustees on December 18, 2019, with ChelPipe Group’s shareholders Andrei Komarov and Alexander Fedorov on the board among other members. According to ChelPipe Group’s press service, the meeting was dedicated to the board’s performance throughout the year 2018 and to the plans for the year 2019. This year, the board intends to get the main stage and the ballet hall repaired and the theater’s infrastructure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2019. More than 1,500 Sverdlovsk Region private residents and sole traders went through personal bankruptcy/asset disposal procedures last year, which exceeded the figures for the year 2017 (965 people/sole traders) by 61.3%, United Credit Bureau’s and FedResurs’s joint research findings indicate. It is reported that only 5.6% of potential bankrupts actually went through the procedure in 2018 (overall number: 27,680 private individuals and sole traders, up by 3,320 people on a year earlier). Based on this criterion, Sverdlovsk Region comes No.4 after Moscow,

UrBC, Moscow, January 22, 2019. The average interest rate on a mortgage on an existing home rose to 10.31% on average in December 2018 (compared with 10.21% in November 2018), Rusipoteka’s research findings indicate. The average interest on a mortgage on a new home is now up to 10.18% a year; the average offer on other banks’ loans’ refinancing rate is now 10.23%. ‘Based on our analysis of interest rate dynamics in December, 9% a year appears to be the best offer one can find advertised on the banks’ websites. These appealing-looking ‘best rates’ usually only apply to limited borrower

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 22, 2019. An investigation of job opening ads placed by Sverdlovsk Region’s employers revealed numerous violations of current labor laws. According to Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities, companies routinely discriminate against their potential employees by setting specific age, gender, appearance, bad habits, and pregnancy criteria, as well as demanding that a job candidate should own a car or live in the same part of town where the company is based. For one, Yekaterinburg-based OOO LotEka advertised a vacancy in Sales, insisting that a job-seeker

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 22, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) shipped 1,269,000,000 kg of zinc-coated rolled metal goods to customers in 208; this is, so far, the largest output in the company’s history. According to MMK’s Information & PR Department, last year’s figure was 11.9% greater than that for the year 2017 (1,134,000,000 kg). MMK has been raising its zinc-coated products output steadily for the last fifteen years. Two highly productive continuous hot-dip galvanizing units got launched in 2002 and 2008 to achieve the goal; in 2012, an extension to the new

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 21, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) selected the winners of the company’s Director-General’s Prize in Safety, Environment, and Healthcare. The awarding ceremony took place at the plant’s S.Ordzhonikidze Culture Palace on January 17, 2019; this was part of the monthly meeting on industrial injuries, fire safety, and industrial safety at MMK and MMK Group’s member enterprises. According to MMK’s Information & PR Department, the awards were given out by MMK Director-General Pavel Shilyayev, Job Safety, Industrial Safety & the Environment

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) set up yet another SME-oriented branch in Moscow in late December. The new branch can be found in Zubarevsky Center at 15 Zubarev Lane (Bldg 1), which is a five-minute walk from Alekseyevskaya Underground Station. This is the fifteenth branch the bank opened in 2018 and the fiftieth SME-oriented one, the URBD’s press service reports. ‘The strategy of setting up a network of offices aimed at businesses proved quite fruitful. We can see our business customers are mostly interested in settlement

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 21, 2019. Members of the rescue teams who helped find and evacuate the victims of an explosion at an apartment building on December 31, 2018 got awarded in Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Information & PR Department reports. Thank-you letters from Head of Russia’s Department of Emergencies’ Chelyabinsk Region division were presented to 111 employees of MMK and MMK Group’s other member enterprises; all of them helped to deal with the emergency. These are people working at MMK Group’s member enterprises’ Drop-Hammer Department, Gas Rescue

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 21, 2019. The overall amount of MegaFon Ural’s business customers’ international traffic rose by 10% in January 2019 compared with one year earlier, the company’s press service reports. Since the start of the year, local business people have visited 125 different countries, including such popular exotic locations as Tanzania, Jamaica, Oman, Kenia, Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Honduras (the top seven destinations for MegaFon’s subscriber this year so far). Thailand was the country where MegaFon registered the greatest amount of Internet traffic (roughly the

UrBC, Moscow, January 21, 2019. Rustam Korelin, a worker from Sukhoi Log, Sverdlovsk Region, got detained in Moscow’s Red Square on January 18, 2019 for a one-person protest march, Novaya Gazeta reports. ‘I am in hazardous employment as a furnace boxman at a Sukhoi Log plant. I only make RUB 25,000 a month. Muscovites, this isn’t fair!’ Korelin’s banner read. According to the newspaper, Rustam Korelin and other members of a workers’ group at Fores Plant want a wage increase, an independent trade union, earlier retirement options for those working in hazardous conditions, and compensation for

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, January 18, 2019. Chair of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Board of Directors Viktor Rashnikov made a public announcement relating to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to re-house all the home owners in the apartment building in Magnitogorsk that got devastated by a an explosion. ‘Within hours of the tragedy in Magnitogorsk on December 31, MMK joined the rescue forces and emergency teams. Over a hundred employees and special-purpose vehicles operated on the site 24/7. The company has also allocated some RUB 100 million to support the victims directly