UrBC, Moscow, February 20, 2018. Rostelecom is launching its Unified Biometric Voice & Image Recognition System on a commercial scale on July 1, 2018, Prime refers to the company Vice President for Development Alexander Ayvasov as stating. The system was designed by order of Russia’s Communications Ministry and the Central Bank of Russia. The initial version of the system was presented to the agencies on February 19. ‘Rostelecom started working on a united biometric identification system as recently as six months ago. The first working version of the system features the very technologies

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 20, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast proved one of Russia’s top ten most popular areas last year, with over 2.5 million tourists visiting the place, TourStat refers to its own research findings as indicating. 56.5m people traveled within Russia last year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 3%; foreign nationals made 19 million trips around the country in the nine months of 2017, according to the incoming tourism stats. Krasnodar Territory, Moscow Obalst, and the Republic of Crimea were the three most visited in-country tourist attractions, with 15.8m,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Ural Airlines are launching two new scheduled flights from Khabarovsk via Irkutsk to Sochi and from Vladivostok via Krasnoyarsk to Sochi, the air carrier’s press service reports. The flights will be operated starting from May 24, 2018. Fight U6 135 (Vladivovstok-Sochi, with a stopover in Krasnoyarsk) will be available evert Monday (U6 136, the Sochi-Vladivostok one will be operated on Sundays). Fight U6 160 (Khabarovsk-Sochi, with a stopover in Irkutsk) will be available on Thursdays (U6 159, the Sochi-Khabarovsk one will be operated on Wednesdays). You

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Construction sites in Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District are welcoming students looking for part-time options for the ninth time this year, RSG-Akademicheskoye’s Director-General Victor Kisselev said at a recent press conference. ‘Akademicheskiy will keep expanding for many years to come. I think students both from Yekaterinburg and other parts of Russia will keep coming to work here. This experience is truly priceless, since many of the high-profile executives and managers actually started out as members of student builder teams. This company also

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. ChTPZ Group, Russia’s Education & Science Ministry, Sverdlovsk Oblast Government, and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) signed an agreement on cooperating in the field of vocational education management at the Russian Investment Forum, the Group’s press service reports. The agreement was signed by Russia’s Education & Science Minister Olga Vassilyeva, Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast Evgeny Kuivashev, Chair of ChTPZ BOD Andrei Komarov, and ASI Director-General Svetlana Chupsheva. This agreement will serve as the basis for the development,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) and Mango Telecom are trying a pilot sale of Mango Office Virtual (Cloud) PBX in five Russian cities where the bank operates, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Mango Office is a service that helps companies with a large inflow of incoming calls always stay in touch with their customers. A service user is provided with a PBX, call analysis data, call recording, and other options. For the time being, Mango Office is only available at UBRD branches in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Perm, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 19, 2018. Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for the first month of the year. 566,605 people flew with the airline in January, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 20%, the air carrier’s press service reports. The airline operated 4,234 flights on January 1-31, 2018, including 2,375 domestic flights, 949 flights to and from the CIS member sates, and 910 international flights. The number of flights operated last month was 17% larger than in January 2017. Passenger turnover amounted to 1,367,799,000 passenger-kilometers, which exceeded

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. Rosatom TVEL’s Novouralsk-based Ural Electrochemical Combine came up with a performance report on industrial safety, job safety, nuclear safety, radiation safety, and environmental protection for the year 2017, the company press service reports. ‘There were no INES scale-rated nuclear or radiation events, incidents, or emergencies at the plant last year that could have affected the population, the plant’s staff, or the environment in any way,’ the plant’s Deputy Technical Director for Nuclear, Radiation and Industrial Safety & Job Safety Evgeny

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) managed to reduce its harmful air emissions by 3.7% last year compared with the year 2016. This resulted from a whole range of environmental initiatives, the company press service reports. ‘Throughout all of last year, the plant was busy repairing its aspiration systems (including the dust- and gas-trapping units at the three ladle furnaces in the converter shop, at the final check lines at the wheel-making department, at the foundry departments, and at the slurry recycling

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 16, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and SMS Group GmbH signed an agreement for the delivery of equipment needed to reconstruct MMK’s hot-roll Mill 2500 at the company Sheet-Rolling Department 4. The equipment will get delivered onto the plant in a series of shipments throughout the next three years, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The mill reconstruction is part of MMK’s long-term strategic program to upgrade the finishing train, namely, to improve its process control system. ‘The Mill 2500 reconstruction is part of MMK’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. Sberbank Ural issued its first mortgage that was part of the state-subsidized support program for young families with children. According to RSG-Akademicheskoye, the program took off at Sberbank Ural on February 7. The very next day, a Yekaterinburg family who had their second child two weeks earlier, was issued a mortgage where the interest rate comes to 6% a year for the first three years. The new home owners will move to their two-bedroom apartment in Akademicheskiy District in the nearest future. ‘Yekaterinburg is one of Russia’s first cities to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 16, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) supplied a set of 54 E1 rails (1,650,000 kg all in all) to Greece for the first time ever. The rails will be used for Athens Underground expansion, the company press service says. Attiko Metro representatives and J&P Avax (the project developer) executives audited ZSMK in the fall and looked into the rail-testing process. They were quite satisfied with the results of the inspection as well as with the quality of produce. ‘EVRAZ Holding’s strategic goal is to become an influential

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 15, 2018. SKB-Bank was one of Ural Federal District five largest banks in terms of asset volume last year, the bank refers to Interfax 100 rating as stating. SKB-Bank came fourth in the rating of Ural Federal District-based banks, with assets amounting to over RUR 110bn. The bank also proved Sverdlovsk Oblast’s second largest bank. Twenty-five Ural Federal District-based banks were featured in Interfax CEA’s rating as of December 31, 2017. The rating presents data on the banks’ assets and liabilities, capital, and profits and losses.

UrBC, Moscow, February 15, 2018. Mercedes’s official representative on the Russian market Mercedes-Benz RUS is calling 1,480 Mercedes-Benz V-Klasse and VITO units off, Rosstandart’s website states. The automobiles that are being called off are the ones sold in 2014 and 2015; the reason behind the decision is the possibility of airbags reacting to ‘false alarms’. ‘The driver’s airbag might get activated due to an electro-static discharge if the steering head doesn’t get earthed properly and the wiring tracks inside the wound springs in the understeering switches also get damaged. The driver

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 15, 2018. Sverdlovsk Oblast came 11th in the living standards rating for Russian Federation constituencies; the rating was carried by RIA Rating for the year 2017. The constituency went one position up compared with the year earlier and is now only 0.2 points away from Kaliningrad Oblast, which is currently No. 10 in terms of living standards. ‘The rating was based on a whole range of various parameters that indicated the actual condition of this or that aspect of living standards and the social sector situation. Based on these 72 indicators, a unified rating

UrBC, Moscow, February 15, 2018. The sales of gold items rose by 43% on the Russian jewelry market on February 10-11 compared with February 3-4, 2018, online cash desk maker Evotor reports. All in all, people bought 54% more jewelry on the said days. In certain categories, earrings, bracelet charms, and necklaces were among the bestsellers, with sales up 38%. At the same time, the amount of rings sold declined by 40% compared with the previous period. ‘As for men’s gifts, the sales of military-themed goods doubled (which may have to do with the upcoming Defender of the Fatherland’s Day on

UrBC, Moscow, February 15, 2018. Russia’s Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said at a recent Federation Council meeting that he hoped a bill would be adopted allowing the national security, defense, and law enforcement agencies to down drones in the restricted areas prior to the beginning of the World Football Championship (takeoff at eleven Russian cities on June 14), Kommerant reports. According to the minister, it is imperative that ‘drones operating illegally in restricted areas should get registered as offenders and also stopped’ to make sure restricted-entry facilities stay secure. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2018. Ural Airlines are once again offering their customers a discount of up to 30% on popular summer flights, the air carrier’s press service reports. The sale is on through February 25, 2018 and applies to flights to be operated between May 14 and October 28, 2018. You can now book tickets for your summer flights at a much better price than that offered shortly before departure: the discount could reach up to 30% of the flight’s cost; this is a limited offer. ‘February is the best time to think of a summer vacation. Ural Airlines are bringing your vacation

UrBC, Moscow, February 14, 2018. RUR 2.5bn got stolen from the Russian banks’ customer accounts last year, TASS refers to Deputy Head of the Central Bank of Russia’s Main Department for Security & Data Protection Aremt Sychev as stating. ‘According to the data the national banks provide the Bank of Russia with, the overall amount of unauthorized transactions involving legal entities’ accounts reached around RUR 1.57bn last year, that of unauthorized transactions involving credit/debit card accounts reached around RUR 0.96bn,’ Sychev said at the 10th Ural Information Security Forum.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2018. The construction of a set of new buildings to house maternity and fertility clinic in Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District will begin at the end of March, Sverdlovsk Oblast Information Policy Department reports. The new facilities are meant to become the basis of a new medical cluster in the area. The fertility research institute will be located at the intersection of Amundsen St and Sakharov Ave. A 5.5-hectare stretch of land has been allocated for the purpose. The entire structure will be some 9,500 m2 large. The layout covers an in-patient unit