Russian Railway executives arrived in Yekaterinburg on business. First Vice President Vadim Morozov is expected to meet heads of Siberian and Ural Railways to discuss performance of railways despite the ongoing repairs and reconstruction. The meeting will probably be attended by acting Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Sergey Kozyrev, Vice Presidents Georgy Kornilov, Valery Reshetnikov, and Vladimir Vorobyev, heads of departments from Moscow as well as from West Siberian, South Ural, Gorkovskaya and Kuibyshevskaya Railways. The Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in

‘Yekaterinburg gambling market is experiencing a dramatic decrease in the number of players, which largely has to do with the fact that new amendments to the gambling regulation law come into force on July 1, 2007,’ says President of Ural Gambling Business Development Association Alexei Galaguzov. ‘There were 360 amusement arcades in the city last year but only 260 at the beginning of 2007, and the number will probably have dropped down to 120 or 130 by July 1, 2007. As regards casinos, there will be no more than six of them operating in Yekaterinburg,’ he reports. ‘Quite a few gamblers are

According to the Ural Chamber of Real Estate, 53% more apartments are now offered for direct sales in Yekaterinburg. The Chamber says the number has been growing steadily over the last few months: the ratio of apartments meant for later re-sale to those meant for direct sales was 57% to 43% at the beginning of 2006, but comes to 47%/53% at the moment. The supply on the local existing homes market is expected to grow between 15% and 5% a month.

The awarding ceremony of Russian Wings 2006 (the national aviation prize) took place in Moscow on April 3, 2007. Ural Airlines (the region’s largest carrier) won in two most important categories, becoming the Carrier of the Year in terms of domestic and international flights, reports the company’s press officer. The first prize was given to Aeroflot Russian Airlines, though. Russian Wings is the only rating-based award that gives one a chance to impartially evaluate Russian carriers’ performance in a whole range of aspects, including the passenger turnover and dynamics, profitability, etc.

The Main Forestry Management Division of Sverdlovsk Region and Consumer Market Offenses Administration under Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs (namely, the Environmental Police Department) signed a cooperation agreement, says the spokesperson for the Main Forestry Management Division. The two authorities agreed to assist each other in responding to environmental offenses quickly and effectively, making sure the culprits can’t avoid being punished and always make up for the damage they have done. Given that the number of environmental police officers will have reached 500 by the

‘The criminal suit of Yuri Repeta, former CEO of Noviy Grad (the local developer) is now being handled by Internal Affairs Administration,’ says Maxim Kasatkin, Director of Economic Offenses Department of Yekaterinburg Internal Affairs Administration. ‘The additional accounting examination by experts that should reveal which financial frauds have brought the company to its knees financially has not been completed yet; the case could be placed with the court at the end of May 2007,’ Mr. Kasatkin explains. Yuri Repeta is accused of fraud; in the meantime, HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (Noviy Grad’s

‘The local wholesale fuel prices tend to go up; the average petrol price has grown 14% since February 2007, and diesel fuel has risen by 6%,’ General Director of SverdlovskNefteProduct Nikolai Kuzin said to UrBC. ‘Further increase in wholesale prices will possibly affect the retail ones, although it’s hard to say right now just how the retail prices will change,’ Mr. Kuzin said. According to Vedomosti newspaper, the rising global oil prices and the seasonal growth of domestic demand made prices rise dramatically: they soared 25% last month, which might mean having your car filled at a gas

The insulation coating of one of filtering vessels caught fire during the installation process at the recycling facility under construction next to Sverdlovsk-Sortirovochniy railway station at 4 PM yesterday. No one was hurt, says the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Railways. Several fire brigades were needed to put the fire out; the damage is being assessed at the moment. The accident occurred far from the railways, so the trains keep transiting as usual.

The public prosecution bodies of Ural Federal District completed the investigation of a case that involved abuse of power and large-scale embezzlement by two officers of justice of Sverdlovsk Region Service. The inquiry revealed that Alexei Parfenov and Alexei Belyi had for a number of years been using their position to forge fictitious financial records and to have money illegally transferred into their friends and relatives’ accounts in the local banks. They used to cash the money through ATMs and thus stole more than 1 million RUR. In the course of the investigation, they were fired,

The import figures within the Ural Customs Administration zone came to $726.5 million in January-February 2007, with over 52%, or $378.7 million, being the import from far abroad and 47.9%, or $347.8 million, being the import from the countries of the CIS, says the spokesperson for the Administration. Import grew 41.1% (in terms of prices) against a year earlier due to rising contract prices and increase in the amount of goods. The figures also went up 8.2% (compared to 2006) in terms of weight and amounted to 5.4 million tons. The share of import from far abroad comprised 2.5%, or 132,700

A group of Bavarian executives arrived in Yekaterinburg to see Academic construction project at the office of RENOVA Stroy Group on April 4, 2007. Among the German visitors are Bavarian Deputy Minister for Economics, Infrastructure, Transport, and Technology, Managing Director for Foreign Economic Relations of Munich Chamber of Commerce and Industry, CEO of Bayern International Reinhard Pfeiffer, and German Consul General in Yekaterinburg Tilo Klinner. RENOVA’s guests aim to have a look at the project and discuss the possible cooperation prospects. This new district is to appear in the

Sverdlovsk Region Duma approved of the changes made to chapter 8 of the regional land management law after the second and third readings. According to the changes approved of by the Duma Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Management Policies, the ‘no man’s land’ (that is, the land allotments that belong neither to the region nor to a municipality) will be distributed by the city councils only after agreeing on this with Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management.

According to their official report, Federal Financial Markets Service refused to register changes and amendments made to the trust management rules of Energy – Mixed Investments, the unit investment fund managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. on March 29, 2007.

URSA Bank hit 19th in Top 30 Russian Banks rating prepared by Medialogia, the special mass media analysis and monitoring system, with the number of newspaper reports related to a bank within the period of March 1-20, 2007 used as the basic criterion. URSA Bank has been referred to 225 times (excluding ads). SibAcademBank and Uralvneshtorgbank (these two merged to become URSA Bank last December) have always been present on this Top 30 list in different positions, yet this is the first time URSA bank has ever managed to hit the rating on the basis of press accounts, which means the media have

‘The fact that Sverdlovsk Region government sold its share in the authorized capital of Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank has been affecting the bank badly, since more than 50% of its performance solely depends on the regional government’s budget and support. The bank has no niche on the Ural financial market and is not likely to get one any time soon,’ Director of Institute of Economics of the Ural branch of RAS Alexander Tatarkin said to UrBC. In the meantime, the regional Minister for Public Property Management Alexei Molotkov announced at Sverdlovsk Region Duma’s extraordinary meeting on March

‘We feel that all branches of power support our project,’ says Veniamin Golubitskiy, CEO of RENOVA Stroy Group. ‘I believe this is just the beginning of private-state partnership. Our Academic construction project has been assessed by the Russian Federation President, his plenipotentiary representative in Ural Federal District, and Sverdlovsk Region Governor as well as by the local authorities. This is a large-scale program that helps identify all the challenges the construction market is currently facing. The federal authorities have already made a number of crucial decisions, including the

SKB-Bank offers a new loan scheme known as A Loan without Backers and a Bonus to customers who have already used any of the bank’s loans, paid at least one of them off, and have no delays in current payments. ‘The new scheme gives one a chance to take advantage of a more appealing interest rate and to do without backers or collaterals,’ says Consumer Lending Director Konstantin Bogatyrev. In addition, SKB-Bank has recently reduced interest rates on A Loan to a Friend and is currently working on a totally new car loan scheme, says the bank’s press officer.

‘Land is sometimes allocated illegally in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, and Pervouralsk,’ says Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region. ‘The law states that beginning from October 1, 2005, all land allotments meant for construction purposes must be put up to auction and there can be no arrangements between the local council and the builder. We check to see how these rules are complied with very three months and, if there are any violations to that extent, we have to do more inspections, since any prior arrangements violate free competition. The city councils often refer to the fact

According to Severnaya Kazna’s official report, the agenda of the general meeting scheduled for May 18, 2007 includes an item regarding the possible increase in the company’s authorized capital through an additional share issue. The company last went through this in October 2006, and since then, the stockholders’ shares kept being redistributed so that Severnaya Kazna’s top management now controls the blocking packet of shares. The last change took place in March 2007 when SK-Prom CEO Pavel Chernavin and Rais Garifullin sold their 19.028% and 5.002% share holdings.

Bank 24.ru organized a free workshop on the potential of Visa + Internet on March 27, 2007. There were 30 participants altogether (mostly the bank’s guests and clients) who got acquainted with the benefits of using bank cards and grace periods as well as competitive advantages of different card types and learned how much money one could make using the card interest rates. The attendants were walked through presentations of cards for both private clients and businesses (this included the so-called salary schemes and corporate cards). The workshop agenda included a quiz, with contestants having