UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region’s Finance Ministry started coordinating budget committee meetings in order to look into local governments’ proposals as to the constituency’s budget for 2018, Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department reports. According to Sverdlovsk Region’s First Deputy Finance Minister Svetlana Klimuk, all the forecasts as to tax-related and non-tax-related budget inflow in 2018-2020 are based on the business-as-usual economic scenario, which means a moderate growth of both industrial production output and workers’ pay. As for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2017. EVRAZ Holdings presented its pedestrian quests program to locals of Nizhniy Tagil and Novokuznetsk in early August; this City Walks Project was designed as a way to celebrate the holding’s 25th anniversary and brought over 440 teams together, the company press service reports. ‘Pedestrian quests present a new kind of active pastime: learning about the history and architecture of a city you live in in a game format. The company developed three unique quests for Nizhniy Tagil and Novokuznetsk; these vary in difficulty (you can choose among green, blue,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2017. Consolidated fixed assets of Sverdlovsk Region-based for-profit companies (excluding small enterprises) was estimated at RUR 3.5243 trillion (with all depreciation adjustments), while their net book value was estimated at RUR 1.511 trillion, Sverdlovskstat reports. This figure is 16.1% larger than that for the end of 2015. The local businesses’ renewal coefficient came to 10.8% in 2016, while liquidation coefficient stood at 0.6%. The share of fully obsolete and worn-out fixed assets amounted to 15.6% of all fixed assets last year.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 27, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) came up with a Collective Agreement draft that dwells on the workers’ benefits and compensations, the company press service reports. ‘A range of lawyers, economists, and job safety experts were involved in the drafting of the agreement,’ says MMK Group’s Chair of Trade Union Boris Semenov. Semenov says a lot of preparatory work had to be done first: drafters had to look into the latest changes in the labor codes and do a comparative analysis of existing collective agreements used at Russia’s other mining and

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 26, 2017. Sibir, the nuclear powered icebreaker in the Project 22220 series, was put on water at Saint Petersburg Baltic Shipyard on September 22, 2017. The body of the vessel was made from metal supplied by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK), the company press service reports. There are currently three icebreakers in the 22220 series, including Arktika and Ural. MMK supplies metal for these vessels as well. Arktika and Ural are the world’s biggest and most powerful icebreakers. Sibir’s parameters are: tonnage: 33,500,000 kg; length: 173 meters; width: 34

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2017. Ural Airlines are now launching Choose Your Winter, their annual winter sale campaign, the air carrier’s press service reports. Tickets for domestic and international flights and flights around the CIS that get booked between September 25 and October 8, 2017 can be had at a 30%; this is a limited offer that holds for flights to be operated between September 25, 2017 and April 15, 2018. Discounts are offered on flights operated from Yekaterinburg, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, Omsk, Barnaul, Blagoveschensk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Yakutsk,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2017. Rustam Muminov’s team from EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Mine in Kemerovo Region has produced 2,000,000,000 kg of coal since the start of the year, EVRAZ Holding’s press service reports. This was the first team to reach this output level in Raspadskaya Coal Company this year. ‘Rustam Muminov’s team is one of Raspadskaya Mine’s best performers; they always have great production output figures and work smoothly and accident-free. We need to keep up with this tempo in order to meet our coal production target figures for this year,’ says Director of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2017. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company Untied Energy Systems (FGC UES) coordinated special tactical training exercises in Western Siberia in order to drill one of the most challenging emergency scenarios: a metal support beam falling down and damaging 220-kilowatt electric mains. The news was reported by FGC UES’s PR & Media Group in Western Siberia. It took the company’s power engineers three hours to handle the simulated emergency, which proved they are quite ready to handle any problems during fall and winter. More than thirty people contributed to the

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, September 26, 2017. The final rounds of Metroshka 2017, a children’s amateur football championship, were held in Chelyabinsk; the event was coordinated by Russian Copper Company. Teams from Chelyabinsk Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Kurgan Region, and Bashkortostan competed in the Super Cup, the actual FIFA World Football Championship trophy (that everyone could have a picture taken with at Central Stadium). Loko-Olimp from Kartaly and Torpedo from Shadrinsk made it to the finals in the older children’s group, with the Kartaly team beating Torpedo 4:1. Sergey Kondrashov from

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 25, 2017. Sinara Transport Machines’ SinaraPromTrans will now offer its vehicle maintenance services to Pipe Metallurgical Company’s Taganrog Metallurgical Plant (TAGMET), Sinara Group’s press service says. TAGMET handed its 13 locomotive shunters, a railway depot, and 57 km worth of railways over to SinaraPromTrans. The latter also re-employed all of the railway depot workers. SinaraPromTrans also signed an agreement with TAGMET’s trade union to keep all of the employee social benefit packages and bonuses; this is part of the plant’s Collective Agreement,’ the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 25, 2017. Some two hundred workers from EVRAZ Holding Ural and its daughter companies took part in the holding’s Together! Youth Conference, the company press service reports. Employees of EVRAZ Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) and EVRAZ Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK) talked about the two companies’ development potential and the carrier opportunities their offer. EVRAZ Vice President and head of EVRAZ Holding Ural Maxim Andriasov discussed the company development, carrier, and a healthy lifestyle with young workers

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 25, 2017. Fifty students of Pervouralsk Polytechnic enrolled on ChTPZ Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program. They will all train to get qualifications as professional welders, the company press service reports. ChTPZ Group and Pervouralsk Polytechnic signed a cooperation agreement on The Future of White Metallurgy at the All=Russian Research-to-Practice Dual Education Conference in April 2017. The program goes along the lines of the German dual education system, with 40% of the time spent on classroom learning and 60% of the time spent

UrBC, Moscow, September 25, 2017. The Russian Government adopted a new cost of living amount for the second quarter of 2017; the figure currently comes to RUR 10,329 a month, the Cabinet’s website states. ‘The decree set the cost of living (countrywide) at RUR 10,329 for the second quarter of 2017 (which exceeds the figures for the first quarter of the year by 4.2%); the cost of living amount comes to RUR 11,163 for working-age citizens (up 4.3% on the first quarter of 2017), to RUR 8,506 for retirees (up 4% on the first quarter of 2017), and to RUR 10,160 for children (up 4.1% on the first

UrBC, Moscow, September 25, 2017. Russians now spend 28% more on average to maintain their cars than one year earlier, Yandex.Dengi refers to its own research findings as indicating. The company analysts looked into car mechanics’ bills, as well as at the amount of money drivers leave at car washes and gas-filling stations and pay in parking fees and traffic fines. Offline shoppers used their Yandex.Dengi cards and online ones used their Yandex.Kassa service. Traffic fines got paid through Yandex.Shtrafi app (e-wallets, bank cards, and Apple Pay). According to the research findings, every car

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 22, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won in the International Competition of Scientific, Scientific/Technical, and Innovative Developments Aimed At The Development & Exploration of The Arctic & Continental Shelf 2017, the company press service reports. 102 projects submitted by sixty-eight companies based in Russia, the CIS member states, and Europe took part in the annual contest. The projects were all aimed to promote scientific research and scientific/technical and innovative activity to develop the Russian Arctic. The judges’ panel,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2017. Yekaterinburg came seventh in the rating of Russia’s fifty largest cities in terms of new home prices in August 2017, domofond.ru reports. Just like one year earlier, Moscow was predictably No.1, followed by towns in Moscow Region, Saint Petersburg, and cities in the Volga Region and the South of Russia. In Moscow, the average price of a new home rose by 1.6% in the course of one year, from RUR 222,900 per m2 in August 2016 to RUR 226,400 in August 2017. Saint Petersburg was second on the list, with the average per-square-meter price of a new home

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region-based likely bankrupts are now five months older on average that six months ago: their age now comes to 43.6 years, National Credit History Bureau’s press service reports. According to the Bureau, the nation-wide share of borrowers and likely bankrupts in the under-thirty age group came to 8.6% in early September, which was 1.2% less than six months previously. People in the most economically active age group (30 to 50 years old) made up 63% of all likely bankrupts, which was 0.2% more than six months previously. As for those in the

UrBC, Moscow, September 22, 2017. The number of new loans taken out by borrowers over 60 years old has gone down by 7% this year, even though the overall loan amount rose by 26%, United Credit History Bureau’s press service reports. 1.71m loans were issued to loan applicants in the 60+ age group in 2017, with overall loan amount at RUR 142.31bn; a year earlier, the figures were 1.85m and RUR 112.79bn, respectively. The increase in both the number and the amount of new loans was most noticeable in the secured loan segment: the number of new car loans rose by 48%, with overall amount up by 59%.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 22, 2017. Ural Airlines recently introduced a new, scheduled flight from Saint Petersburg to Tenerife, the air carrier’s press service reports. Starting from October 22, 2017, passengers can head for the Canary Islands’ most popular location. The flight will be operated every Friday, with a stopover in Barcelona, which means you can book a ticket either to Barcelona or Tenerife. The one-and-a-half hour break in Spain’s capital is a great opportunity to go shopping and have a cup of coffee in between the two legs of the journey. ‘Tenerife is a unique destination

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 21, 2017. Rosatom TVEL’s Ural Electrochemical Combine (UEIP) in Novouralsk delivered some standard samples of isotope structure of uranium to its customers, the company press service reports. The samples are necessary to ensure control and to keep count of nuclear materials, to control the technological process of isotope separation, to get the end goods and measurement techniques certified. To get the samples, UEIP produced uranium isotopes of high isotope cleanliness: it takes an entire specialized department equipped with precision equipment and