MegaFon Ural, the mobile operator, introduced new bonus schemes on April 1, 2007. The company’s customers can now get sets of 30, 60, 120, and 250 minutes of local conversations and a set of 30 multimedia messages free of charge for 50, 95,180, 340, and 45 points, respectively (The number of points you score depends on how much you actually talk). The earlier bonuses (free local conversations for a day, for a weekend, and for a month) will no longer be available beginning from May 1, 2007. Both the new and the old schemes will be valid throughout the month of April. The advantage of the new

‘Sverdlovsk Region has been trying to contribute to making Yekaterinburg a better place. We have already allotted 1 billion RUR for building road junctions this year, with another billion to be invested in 2008,’ says Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘The city is going to get environmental police responsible for a number of issues, including the state of the roads. The police will comprise 500 officers who will monitor the performance of local housing and maintenance companies. In case their cleanup efforts have little or no efficiency, these companies will be fined,’ the Governor

SKB-Bank has recently signed a number of payment transfer agreements with local companies and organizations. One can now make payments to Sverdlovsk Region Information and Tourism Center, GlavTour Ltd., Co-owners of 63 Furmanov St., Co-owners of 3/1 Rodonitovaya St., Co-owners of 62 Krasnoarmeyskaya St., Co-owners of 51 Slavyanskaya St., and Co-owners of 18 Mendeleyev St., as well as to most local colleges, mobile and landline operators, reports the bank’s press officer. One can also pay one’s housing bills, realtor’s and insurance fees, and rent. The service is available at any of SKB-bank’s

‘The Russian Federation law states that if dishonest builders fail to use their land allotments within three years, these allotments must be withdrawn; we intend to stick to the letter of the law,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference. ‘The thing is, when no building is put up on the land, people who invested in the future apartments are obviously suffering, which has inevitable social implications. So, in case a land allotment is obviously misused, the builder will have to part with it,’ Mr. Rossel explained. The Governor said earlier that the

Yekaterinburg is going to host the 5th International Conference on Heating Equipment Restoration, Maintenance, and Repair on March 28-30, 2007. The conference is aimed at information exchange and experience-sharing. The participants (executives of RAO UES of Russia, territorial power generating companies, power stations, contractors, and machine-building enterprises from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Europe, and Japan, as well as faculty of industrial colleges) are to discuss the ways of upgrading equipment, using advanced turbine-making technologies, cooperating with foreign

Yekaterinburg’s law-enforcement officers revealed that one of the Federal Communication Surveillance Agency executives accepted bribes, reports Valeriy Gorelikh, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs. ‘The officers searched the headquarters of the agency’s regional division at 39 Lenin Ave. and withdrew some papers that prove the agency’s executives are corrupt,’ Mr. Gorelikh noted. ‘One of them used his position to make local companies dealing in communication services include his relatives in the list of founders. The name of the offender is withheld for

Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Health Mikhail Sklyar met a group of regional Duma deputies on March 28, 2007 to discuss the healthcare success in the first quarter of 2007. It was revealed that the region had about 100,000 medical prescriptions that were supposed to have been subsidized by the federal authorities, with 25,000 people still waiting to get their medicines. The participants though it best to allot 100 million RUR from the region’s reserve fund to cover the prescriptions; moreover, should the federal authorities fail to pay their share of social benefits in the following quarters

Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant has been complying with the physical security and radiation safety norms and regulations on the whole, reported Head of Rostechnadzor (the state technological, environmental, and nuclear safety watchdog) Konstantin Pulikovskiy after visiting the premises of the plant in Zarechniy, Sverdlovsk Region. Rostechnadzor had been examining the plant for two weeks in order to see if it followed Rostechnadzor’s licensing agreement and found that the plant fully complied with it; there were, however, a number of problems that might lead to certain operational

The committee under the House of Representatives of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Chamber met on March 28, 2007 to discuss the changes in the region’s budget for 2007. These changes include raising the budget expenditures by 13.9 billion RUR. According to First Deputy Minister of Finances Svetlana Klimuk and Sverdlovsk Region Duma Chairman for Budget, Finance, and Taxes Vladimir Tereshkov, 70% of investments will be directed to further improvements in education, healthcare, social policies, and support of agriculture. 42% of extra expenditures (5.9 billion RUR) will be used for

‘Sverdlovsk Region is the most ‘bank-saturated’ part of the Urals, claims the research conducted by Expert-Ural magazine. There are 24 banks here against 23 banks in Tyumen Region and 12 banks in Chelyabinsk Region,’ says SKB-Bank’s press officer. The Urals’ Top 10 largest banks list includes four Tyumen Region-based ones, three Sverdlovsk Region-based ones, and three banks from Chelyabinsk Region. According to Expert-Ural, SKB-Bank is the most dynamically developing bank on the list, with its assets growing 63% and its profits 148% in 2006. SKB-Bank is also one of Ural Region’s five largest

Problems related to Noviy Grad (the local builder) and its general contractor HydroSpetsStroy refusing to cooperate with the company’s acting trustee in bankruptcy Olga Rushitskaya have so far remained unresolved, reports Ms Rushitskaya. ‘I still haven’t been able to get in HydroSpetsStroy’s office at 14 Vosmoye Marta St., but, after all, there are legal means of dealing with the company, so I don’t think it’s improbable that we’ll have to use the law-enforcement officers to proceed with the court’s decision,’ she observed. HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. was declared insolvent by Sverdlovsk Region

A meeting of an interdepartmental committee devoted to the Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens program took place in the Plenipotentiary Representation of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District on March 29, 2007. According to the statistics provided, the region’s dwellers were mostly buying one- and two-room apartments throughout 2006, with the average apartment area coming to something between 48 and 53 square meters. The dramatic increase in prices prevented the housing from becoming more affordable: the Russian average reached the point of 32,900 RUR per

Sverdlovsk Region Government House hosted a meeting of the regional committee for compliance with the national projects on March 29, 2007. According to the spokesperson for Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, the agenda of the meeting covered free medicines to citizens on social benefits and drawing up papers needed for putting up more apartments. In addition, local executives and regional leaders presented their reports on the implementation of the national projects. The committee was highly critical of the policy exerted by the management of Egorshinksiy radio plant (part of SK-Prom) based in

The regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) received letters asking for stricter control over the radioactive nuclide content in the wild plants and berries offered for sale on the local markets, reports Rospotrebnadzor’s press officer Anna Ozhiganova. ‘We are now working on a scheme of inspections to be conducted on Sverdlovsk Region’s markets, with emphasis laid on the quality of wild-growing berries and vegetables, and whether the sellers have had them certified,’ Ms Ozhiganova said.

The international Global Experience and Russian Economy forum granted Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin the Russian Economic Leader Award-2006. According to the Governor’s press officer, the forum participants wanted to praise Mr. Sumin’s efforts to support the country’s stable economic development and improve the living standards. The forum, created for learning about and sharing both global and Russian economic experience, has gained a lot of significance over the last few years as a new socio-political trend. It pays special attention to encouragement of successful politicians,

Trying to comply with its customers’ preferences and expectations, Ural Airlines decided to offer a new sale on tickets for south-bound flights. According to Deputy Commercial Director Dmitriy Lvov, the idea of booking one’s holiday in advance proved very popular with the local population, so the second round of sale will last from April 1 to April 30, 2007, with discounts offered on tickets for flights to Sochi, Krasnodar, Mineralniye Vody, and Simferopol scheduled for June-August 2007, reports the carrier’s press officer. This special offer gives Ural travelers a chance to save their time

CEOs and leading experts of industrial enterprises will have to undergo special certification in the headquarters of Rostechnadzor (the state technological and environmental safety watchdog) if any accidents, especially those involving human casualties, occurred on the premises of their companies, Head of Rostechnadzor Konstantin Pulikovksiy announced in the course of a meeting with students and faculty of Ural State Mining University. ‘If an expert has been evaluated as ineligible, he or she won’t be able to work in the field any longer,’ Mr. Pulikovksiy said.

Koltsovo airport is going to give green light for customs clearance to people traveling to and from Russia on March 29, 2007, reports the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration. Head of Federal Customs Service signed the order regarding declaration of goods on November 22, 2006. This order regulates both the procedure itself and the list of customs stations where it should be applied. The system has been used abroad for quite a while already: passengers without large sums of money liable to declaration or forbidden goods are allowed to skip the customs check. This is why the green-light

‘The appointment of the new head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways will be officially confirmed in April when President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin comes back from his business trip to Japan on April 2, 2007. There is no official information on who is going to be appointed, the spokesperson for Russian Railways Public Company said to UrBC. The new appointment became necessary after the Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in Moscow on March 20, 2007 that Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Shevket Shaidullin should resign.

Following the request of Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District, his deputy Viktor Basargin coordinated a meeting of the interdepartmental committee for taxation, banking sector development, and financial markets. Mr. Basargin said that a number of Ural banks started giving college loans to students within the framework of the National Education Project, but more efforts still needed to be made. ‘As regards the Agricultural Development Project, small farms and private plots received over 1 billion RUR worth of loans, yet the lack of strong