MegaFon Ural, the mobile operator, decided to make international roaming cheaper for the summer period. All of the company’s subscribers will have every other minute of in-coming calls free as long as they are in the Holiday zone. What is more, an out-going text message will also be 20% less expensive and will only come to 12 RUR (VAT included). The offer is valid from May 1, 2007 to September 30, 2007. The Holiday zone comprises countries that are classed as Europe, America, and Other Countries in terms of their tariff zones. ‘People often have to limit themselves to shorter conversations

Sberbank of Russia introduced a special offer on May 2, 2007. Any customer using BLITZ money order or an international one in any of the bank’s Yekaterinburg-based subsidiaries will be able to get a DeltaTel phone card that provides for a free call to any Russian or foreign city. The amount of money you send does not matter. One can take advantage of the offer until May 8, 2007; the time span was chosen due to the fact that there are normally quite a few money orders at the beginning of May, so the bank’s clients can be in for a pleasant surprise. BLITZ takes about an hour for the addressee

Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog) decided to allow some Polish bloodstock, born and raised at Polish farms certified for supplying pedigree cattle to Russia by both Russian and Polish vets, to be imported to Russia. The agency notified the EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General that it was willing to send a group of its experts to examine and certify Polish farms interested in supplying cattle to Russia. This visit might take place as early as this May, after the Polish authorities provide Rosselkhoznadzor with a list of such farms and the inspections schedule.

A new office of Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set in operation in the course of a solemn ceremony on April 27, 2007. Yekaterinburg’s first bank-hosting skyscraper is located at the heart of the business quarter at 67 Sacco & Vanzetti St. The symbolic ribbon-cutting ritual was performed by the bank’s president Sergey V. Dymshakov, Head of the Central Bank of Russia in Sverdlovsk Region Sergey V. Sorvin, and Chair of the Union of Ural Bankers Valentina V. Muranova. At a press briefing that followed, the bank’s management spoke on the success of their business in 2006 and

Ural Airlines backed Russian Seasons XXI (Tamar and Scheherezade, two one-act ballets starring the Bolshoy and Maryinskiy Theaters’ leading dancers Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Ilse Liepa, Irma Nioradze, and Ilya Kuznetsov as well as the Kremlin Ballet dancers) that took place in Yekaterinburg on April 24-25, 2007. The carrier’s press officer reports that supporting such culturally promoting projects is one of most important directions in the airline’s corporate social responsibility program.

According to the Expert-Siberia magazine, profits made by Siberia’s largest banks went up nearly 100%, with approximately 60% of revenues attributed to URSA Bank; the same is true of net wealth indicators. URSA Bank was actually No. 1 in the net wealth rating as well as in the securities portfolio one. It also became Siberia’s major bank in terms of investments made by natural persons, the bank’s press officer says.

Evraz Group published a very impressive financial report for the year 2006. The company’s revenues went up 27.4% and amounted to $8,292 million, its EBITDA grew 42.7% and reached the point of $2,652 million, and its net profit increased by 50.9% and came to $1,385 million. The company’s steel output last year exceeded the figures for 2005 by 16% and came to 16.1 million tons; the semi-products output went up 29%, that of heavy plate 135%, that of rolled steel for construction purposes 6.3%. Besides, these products are now sold at impressively growing prices. Evraz Group’s financial success

The recent negotiations held by the management of Koltsovo airport and Ural Airlines have finally resulted in an agreement over the summer slots for 2007, reports the carrier’s press officer. Ural Airlines summer slots are going to almost fully coincide with the so-called historic slots for the summer of 2006. Ural Airlines’ press officer says Koltsovo airport has been responsible for the carrier’s chartered flights delay on a number of occasions this year, obviously inconveniencing the passengers greatly. These events outraged both the company’s clients and the local travel agents. Ural

A few days ago, Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg completed the criminal case related to a bridge failure at the intersection of Shevchenko-Vostochnaya-Sovetskaya St. in Yekaterinburg on September 4, 2006. The investigation revealed that the building and assembly jobs had been performed without a building permit and the design documentation hadn’t undergone the obligatory examination by experts. This violation of the law was occasioned by the negligence of Viktor Menshchikov, director of Blagoustroystvo and the customer. The grave designing mistakes and violations of technological provisos (as

Keeping good partnerships with each other is a must for modern carriers, so Ural Airlines can boast round about fifty interline agreements with the major Russian and foreign airlines, including Czech airlines (the Czech Republic), Emirates (United Arab Emirates), Swiss International Air Lines (Switzerland), Air France (France), S7, UTair, and a number of others, the company’s press officer says. In addition, Ural Airlines keeps doing business with Malev Hungarian Airlines since the latter has recently resumed flying its passengers from Yekaterinburg. The two carriers signed their first

‘Industrial production went up 11.2% in January-March 2007 compared with the first quarter of 2006; this is twice better than the Russian average,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a recent press conference. ‘Investments in the field increased by 21%; this amounts to approximately 26 billion RUR. The housing market grew 40%, with 176,000 square meters of new dwellings introduced within the given period. The regional retail trade turnover rose by 27% and came to 82 billion RUR. The average salary was raised by 31%,’ the Governor said.

Ural Bank of Sberbank of Russia’s 490 subsidiaries have sent over 2.5 billion RUR worth of money orders through BLITZ since the beginning of the year; this amounts to approximately 50,000 operations. BLITZ is both a convenient and advantageous way to transfer money as quickly as possible. Speed is this system’s major strength: it only takes half an hour for the money to be registered within the system, and another half an hour for the receiver to get their cash. It is as if the customers just keep their money in a sort of hyper-wallet that is available to them or their relatives in any spot

‘RTS stock index had been going down from 2,000 points and stopped at 1,915 points; this week, the figure has been fluctuating between 1,955 and 1,990 points. Due to ambiguity of data on the world markets and lack of domestic news, the market is still looking for a direction. RTS and MICEX indices at the close of business came to 1,960.4 and 3,439.8 points respectively on April 26, 2007,’ says SKB-Bank’s trader Alexander Sterkhov. ‘President’s Putin address to the Federal Assembly has been the highlight of the week. The address covers some of the issues related to how the money accumulated

Russian Copper Company has been trying to build up its ore-processing capacity, their press officer says; the growth dynamics can be seen in the fact that the enterprise handled 4 million tons of ore last year, whereas the figures for 2003 only reached the point of 800,000 tons. This year, 5 million tons of ore are expected to be processed due to launching a number of mines in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities met to discuss the ways of enhancing the efficiency of cooperation in the field of fighting bribery among law-enforcement agencies of different types. It was reported that 270 corruption-related crimes that jeopardized the state and the civil service had been revealed in January-March 2007, compared to only 629 cases disclosed over the entire year 2006. In addition to this, there were more general inspections aimed at finding offenses in the field of state and municipal service: the region’s prosecutors revealed 172 such offenses in the first

GRAN Bank might merge with Investbank in the near future, GRAN’s press release says. GRAN Bank’s BOD meeting resulted in the decision to suggest that the shareholders vote for a merger with Investbank in the course of the annual general meeting. The AGM attendees will also have to consider issues related to reorganization of the company, details of the merger agreement and so on. The directors themselves have already come up with a preliminary approval of the papers needed for the transaction and of the necessary amendments to Investbank’s charter as well as of the provisions regarding the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to profit-making NGOs for a term of up to 30 days went down 11.7% (from 31.715 million RUR to 28 million RUR) in January 2006-March 2007.

Ural State University elected its new Rector, the 45-year-old Yekaterinburg Duma deputy and the Dean of the Department of History Dmitriy Bugrov on April 26, 2007. Five people ran for the post altogether: Dmitriy Bugrov, Dean of the Department of Philosophy Alexander Pertzev, Provost Evgeniy Pamyatnikh, Dean of the Department of Physics Alexei Babushkin, and Director of USU Institute for Management and Entrepreneurship Alexei Klyuev. The election procedure lasted for more than six hours, since all the candidates had to present their development projects first. Then the voters (heads of all of

‘Noviy Grad, one of the local builders, will probably not be able to operate on the regional real estate market any longer; this is quite obvious, given the fact that their general contractor (HydroSpetsStroy Ltd.) is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings with Ms Olga Rushitskaya as their acting trustee in bankruptcy and the company cannot afford to put up any more buildings,’ Director of Dishonest Builders Opposition Fund Konstantin Dushechkin said to UrBC. ‘The question we are most worried about now is what is going to happen to the disadvantaged investors. We hope the authorities withdraw

Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma Budget and Economic Policies Committee analyzed the report on the city’s budget revenues and expenditures in 2006. Financing of social projects and use of money obtained through letting municipal property were the items that received the most attention. The budget revenues reached the point of 15 billion RUR last year, which exceeds the initial target figures by 8.8%. Donations from the regional and federal budgets amounted to 4 billion RUR. Taxpaying businesses still owe the city 1 billion RUR. The budget expenditures amounted to 13.4 billion RUR, which falls