UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 23, 2018. Yekaterinburg’s centrally located apartments grew 1.9% less expensive in the last month, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s Analytical Department states in its existing homes market research. ‘The price decrease has to do with the fact that the priciest homes are no longer on offer. So the average asking price now comes to RUR 96,506 per m2 in the city’s most expensive locations,’ the report states. Prices for homes located close to the heart of the city have remained almost the same as earlier (+0.1%) and come to RUR 73,233 per m2 on average. Apartments in other

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2018. Ten more metal-detecting appliances are currently being installed at Yekaterinburg Underground stations. This is expected to halve the congestion-related human traffic in ticket desk areas next to the security zones during rush hours, Counselor to Underground Director for Transport Safety Oleg Drozdov said at a press briefing today. According to Drozdov, the new appliances are made in Russia and have been certified for compliance with all the transport safety requirements; these will get installed in Square 1905, Geologicheskaya, Prospekt Kosmonavtov, and

UrBC, Moscow, April 20, 2018. Russia stopped its supplies of aluminum to Japan completely following the U.S. sanctions, TASS refers to RUSAL Japan’s Director Kunihico Higashi as stating. ‘Our buyers have said they cannot make payments to Rusal, which is related to the recent U.S. sanctions. Such notices were coming to us one after another,’ TASS quotes Higashi as saying. According to Higashi, the aluminum shipment already at sea is going to be the last one headed from Russia to Japan for the time being. TASS reports that, according to the Japan Association for Trade with Russia and Newly

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2018. The online travel service OneTwoTrip looked into Yekaterinburg’s rental market supply to see what was on offer for the World Football Championship days in June. ‘It turns out 54% of accommodation options got entered into the booking system within the last six months (between November 2017 and April 2018), which implies over a half of potential rentals for the World Cup days are either not regular-basis rental properties or rental homes that landlords did not ever advertise online,’ the service says. The pricing policies also look interesting. Out of nearly

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2018. Business owners can now order ‘smart’ online payment terminals at MegaFon’s online shop, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. The package comprises ATOL online payment terminals, a fiscal data storage unit, prepaid transfer of fiscal data to tax authorities by OFD.ru, a SIM card, and a special payment plan (RUR 100 a month). This package purchase will save a customer up to 20% of the regular price. ‘The demand for data transfer services relating to cash and payment terminals rose four times in the Urals last month. To help local

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) is launching a special offer for its retirement-age loan applicants on April 19, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Every customer who applies for and gets our Retirement Loan and makes the first repayment on schedule will get a RUR 1,000 bonus into their personal account. The money can be cashed in or used as partial loan repayment. The offer holds for any of the bank’s branches and outlets through July 18, 2018,’ the press service says. Retirement Loan (interest rate starts from 14.99% a year) is

UrBC, Moscow, April 19, 2018. Roskomnadzor (RKN) is prepared to block the social network Facebook in Russia before the end of the year if the company management fails to comply with the Russian legislative requirements, Head of RKN Alexander Zharov said in an interview to Izvestia. ‘We’ll be looking into their doings until the end of the year, and there are some regulations the company has to comply with: Russian nationals’ databases must be stationed within the country, no unlawful information must be present within the resource (Facebook is already falling behind on this one), and a few

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 19, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region’s court officers have issued more than 32,000 warrants since the start of the year that impose a temporary ban on local debtors’ traveling abroad. Their accumulated debt currently comes to more than RUR 27bn, the local division of Russia’s Federal Service of Court Officers reports. The warrants touched upon 3,496 non-payers of child support, whose consolidated debt amounts to over RUR 1.3bn. 3,000 warrants have to do with people with unpaid housing bills, who owe their suppliers some RUR 3m. As for fines, including traffic ones, 4,000

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 19, 2018. MegaFon.Target proved a particularly popular service with the state-run organizations in March, the telecommunications provider MegaFon’s press service reports. ‘Telecom analysts say March has been the ‘smartest’ month this year so far, with a record-setting number of ‘smart’ text messages sent to local users’ smartphones. State-run organizations and companies sent locals thirteen times more bespoke texts in the first spring month than one year earlier,’ the press service says. Sverdlovsk Philharmonic, multi-service community centers, city clinics and

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 19, 2018. A new 50-megawatt steam turbine will soon get installed at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Central Power Station, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The new equipment will increase the station’s output considerably and will make the entire plant’s power system more reliable and more technologically advanced. The steam turbine T 42/50 will get delivered by Ural Turbine Plant in April or early May. The contract was only signed after all the technical solutions had been worked on, and following a tender procedure. The new

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 19, 2018. Ural Airlines recently introduced E-Assistant (a chat bot) to help every passenger get ready for their flight, the air carrier’s press service says. The electronic assistant is an automated service that provides a customer with all the necessary information relating to booking flights and extra options. To use the bot, you have to look for ‘UralAirlines’ or ‘@uralairlines_bot’ on Telegram or join the airline’s VKontakte group and use the ‘Send A Message’ function. ‘Your personal assistant is always there for you: the chat bot is online 24/7 to answer your

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 18, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) used 5.2m m3 less water from Nizhniy Tagil Reservoir in 2017 compared with one year previously, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Relations Center reports. The plant’s other conservation measures include replacement of old water conduits, repairs of the plant’s water-cooling towers and pumping equipment, and filtering of intermediary ponds where water gets filtered from pollutants (with the pollutants transferred to special recycling wells). In addition to mechanical filtering of water, EVRAZ

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 18, 2018. ChelPipe Group and Ozersk Council signed a cooperation agreement that will touch upon culture, education, and social welfare projects. The agreement was signed during the M.I. Glinka Chelyabinsk Opera House’s board of trustees’ meeting. According to the Group’s press service, the paper was signed by head of ChelPipe Group’s charity and social welfare projects Olga Stebunova and Deputy Mayor of Ozersk Oleg Lange; Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky, ChelPipe Group’s shareholder Andrei Komarov, and Mayor of Ozersk Evgeny Scherbakov also attended the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 18, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region home owners and tenants owed RUR 27.2bn in housing bills at the end of 2017. The amount of bad debt reached as much as RUR 1bn, Sverdlovksstat reports. As of 2016, the overall amount of unpaid housing bills stood at RUR 23.7bn, which means the debt figures rose by 14.8% in the course of one year. The current per capita debt amount comes to RUR 2,174.5, which exceeds the figures for one year earlier by 4%.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 18, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production index rose by 11.2% in January-March 2018 compared with one year previously, Sverdlovskstat reports. The IPI went up by as much as 13.5% in the processing sector and declined by 6.4% and 11.8% in the industry for production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and steam and in the fossil production sector, respectively. As for March 2018, the constituency’s IPI rose by 16.7% against February 2018 and by 13.5% against March 2017.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 18, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region’s unemployment rate amounted to 5% in the first quarter of 2018, Sverdlovskstat reports. The statistical data got processed based on the International Labour Organization (ILO) standards. There were about 2,044,000 Sverdlovsk Region locals in the workforce in January-March 2018 and about 106,600 people out of jobs. One year previously, the unemployment rate was 6.1%.

UrBC,Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2018. MegaFon’s Internet traffic rose 14 times against the usual weekend amount during Yekaterinburg Arena opening and Ural-Spartak football game last Sunday night, MegaFon Ural’s press service reports. ‘Not only locals and visitors from Moscow were eager to see the newly reconstructed stadium and the game itself: according to our traffic data, smartphone owners arrived from Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Surgut, Syktyvkar, Izhevsk, Nizhniy Tagil, Novouralsk, and Kamensk-Uralsky. They used their devices to broadcast the game online and send photos and videos at the speed

UrBC,Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2018. ChelPipe Group recently launched a shot-blasting machine to clean its steel pipes from the inside; this required over RUR 22m in investments, the Group’s press service reports. The project is part of the plant’s production upgrades program for its ChelPipe Prime premium threaded joints, currently manufactured at the company’s Finishing Center. The shot-blasting machine is meant for cleaning the pipes from excess cinder that is a by-product of the thermal treatment of pipes made from 13Cr steel (diameter: 60 mm to 178 mm; length: 7 m to 12 m). These pipes

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 17, 2018. A group of Yekaterinburg delegates came to Magnitogorsk to take a tour of sites and facilities supported by MMK Group’s Metallurg Charity Foundation, the plant’s Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The delegation was chaired by Sverdlovsk Region’s Deputy Minister for Social Policy Sergey Zolotov and directors of Nizhniy Tagil-based centers. The goal was to look into Metallurg’s practices of involving non-profit organizations in the social welfare sector. The visitors learned about the performance of the foundation’s partner organizations:

UrBC,Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new flight from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to Qarshi, Uzbekistan, the air carrier’s press service reports. The flight will be operated every Tuesday and Wednesday (Moscow-Qarshi) and every Tuesday and Thursday (Qarshi-Moscow) starting from May 2, 2018. ‘This new scheduled flight will give our passengers a great opportunity to plan their vacations or business trips. Once in Moscow, you can use our convenient connecting flights to other Russian cities as well to international destinations. All of our flights are operated on