UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2017. Metcombank and Russia’s first private national-scale museum, Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, launched a co-branded project: a number of Visa cards featuring the masterpieces from among Carl Fabergé’s Imperial Easter Eggs, the bank’s press service reports. The idea is to get the bank’s private customers acquainted with the exhibits that are now part of the museum’s permanent exhibition. Additionally, the bank’s premium co-branded cardholders can also get 100% of their money back when visiting the museum. To join the program, you just need to buy your

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2017. ChTPZ Group supplied a number of hot-rolled steel pipes and bent rods to the construction site of Volgograd Arena, a stadium that needs to be put up in time for the World Cup 2018, the company press service reports. The Group delivered its produce to Kurganstalmost, the company that makes metal frameworks for the stadium. The shipment comprised 85,000 kg of steel pipes (diameter: 168 mm; layer thickness: 6 mm; steel type: 09G2S) and metal arches made from 180-mm pipes (layer thickness: 7 mm and 8mm). The pipes were made at the Group’s Chelyabinsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2017. Ural Airlines sell tickets for their Yekaterinburg-Dubai-Yekaterinburg flight for as little as 18,500 RUR (all fees included, as well as 5 kg of cabin luggage and 23 kg of regular luggage) between June 23 and July 16, 2017; the flights will be operated on June 23-August 31, 2017, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘Dubai stands for the clear waters of the Persian Gulf, the unbelievable skyscrapers, the fascinating architecture, all the treasures of the Orient, and the kind of shopping not to be found elsewhere. This is the place to get tanned, go for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) coordinated Fresh Idea on the eve of Inventor’s Day: the event was aimed at involving more company workers into ongoing improvement activity at the plant, the company press service reports. This is the second time the event has been coordinated at the plant. MMK Group’s workers have an opportunity to share their improvement proposals and get a prize. Last year, since orange was chosen as the event’s logo, all of the Fresh Idea participants received some actual oranges and souvenirs bearing the logo. This year, the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2017. MegaFon’s tech team is setting up base stations to expand their network capacity at eighty construction sites for new apartment buildings in Yekaterinburg, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. ‘Thousands of square meters of new homes, both already commissioned and currently under construction, are ready for their owners to make phone calls and use 4G networks,’ the press service says. The new base stations are located in all parts of the city, from Khimmash in the south to Elmash in the north. MegaFon engineers had to take into account

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2017. OOO LocoTech and Sinara Transport Machines’ OOO STM Service recently announced they set up a joint venture at Novosibirsk Loco Repair Plant (NERZ), Sinara Group’s press service reports. The agreement to this effect was signed by LocoTech Director-General Alexei Belinsky and STM Service DG Alexander Izmailov. NERZ shares were divided equally between the two parties (50% of the capital went to each). Starting on July 1, 2017, the joint venture will embark on repairing DC 2ES6 and 2ES10 freight locos and will keep on repairing LocoTech’s passenger locomotives;

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 26, 2017. A relay race for school-age children was hosted at I.Kh. Romazan Sports Palace in Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) reports. The relay race was dedicated to MMK’s 85th anniversary, so the entire event was industrially themed: the children were divided in work crews rather than regular teams, and the judges on the panel acted as heads of production departments. Interestingly enough, the location was also chosen for a reason, as the sports palace was put up by the plant and named after one of MMK’s most honored Directors Ivan Romazan.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2017. Russian Copper Company’s RMK Boxing Promotions sponsors two large-scale sports events in Yekaterinburg on July 3-9, the company press service reports. This is the so called Bravery Week and a Russia-Japan MMA/boxing championship featuring a world class sports player Denis Lebedev. Bravery Week is an open event for everyone, aimed to promote sports and love of one’s home country among the younger generations. For one week, the site in front of Yekaterinburg Drama Theater in Oktyabrskaya Square will host over ten different activities to popularize a healthier

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2017. Yekaterinburg City Council’s Architecture & Urban Planning Committee will consider the options for reconstructing the set of buildings that currently house Russia’s Federal Security Service’s Sverdlovsk Region’s division once again on July 6. The announcement was made via the city council’s website. The reconstruction options will be presented by OOO Nartex. The original idea was to put up a new building in Mashinnaya St. It was then decided to keep the building in place (4 Vainer St) but to have it undergo a major reconstruction to meet today’s needs.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region Government increased the amount of subsidies allocated for road-building and road repairs in the area this year by 490m RUR, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department reports. 253.5m RUR will go directly to repairing roads in Yekaterinburg; the money will be used to co-finance the projects selected by Russia’s Construction Ministry within the framework of their housing construction support program. According to Transport & Communications Minister Vassily Starkov, the funds are meant for building roads in Akademik

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2017. Ural Federal District proved one of Russia’s three top constituencies where cashless payments are used the most, MegaFon’s press service reports. The Urals, Moscow/Moscow Region, and Russia’s North West are the three territories that rely most heavily on MegaFon’s bank card, using it to pay at supermarkets and restaurants as well as for financial services. The card is also used to pay at medical clinics, gas stations, and entertainment venues as well as to pay for the taxi, buy clothes, accessories, and household items, and to pay one’s phone and Internet

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2017. Russian Copper Company keeps introducing more up-to-date sports playgrounds in the towns and cities where its member enterprises operate. Ten workout sites out of the sixteen the company intends to build this year have already been set up and opened. According to the company press service, the workout sites are now available in Korkino, Pervomaysky, Kyshtym, and Karabash in Chelyabinsk Region and five more are located in Chelyabinsk proper. ‘Building workout sites proved one of the most important projects the company carries out in the field of sports and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2017. Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky presented ChTPZ Group’s shareholder Alexander Fedorov with an honorary badge of Chelyabinsk Region’s Honored Citizen for his contribution to the area’s socioeconomic development, the Group’s press service reports. ‘ChTPZ is universally known to be the driving force behind the industrial development in the area for many decades now; the company has also grown to become a recognizable brand and the epitome of the so-called White Metallurgy in the last few years,’ Dubrovsky said. Alexander Fedorov, together with

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 23, 2017. Commercial real estate grew 4% cheaper on Yekaterinburg market in January-May 2017, down to 95,999 RUR per m2 compared with one year earlier, domofond.ru reports. Offices can also be had 4% more cheaply, for 72,845 RUR per m2. Interestingly, the price of commercial real estate actually went up in most other Russian cities with population over 1m in the first five months of the year.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2017. A closing ceremony of the 2nd WorldSkills Hi Tech Championship took place at ChTPZ Group’s training center on June 20, 2017, the company press service reports. The corporate championship winners will go on to represent their company in the final rounds of the national WorldSkills Hi Tech championship this November. The first prize in NC Turning/Milling went to Dmitri Shmarlovsky, a multiple local championships winner, the national semi-finals champion and a fourth-year student on the Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program. Electric

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2017. The average asking price currently comes to 66,334 RUR per m2 on Yekaterinburg existing home market, down 0.4% on four weeks earlier and 13.5% on February 2015, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s analytical report states. Prices went down most noticeably in the city’s fourth most expensive districts (-0.8%), with the average asking price at 55,478 RUR per m2. Centrally located apartments only grew 0.1% less expensive (down to 93,713 RUR per m2), while homes in the city’s second and third costliest locations remained the same and only dropped by 0.2%, respectively.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2017. 107 hotels based in the Mid-Urals got certified last year, which came to 45.1% of the entire number of hotels in the area, Sverdlovskstat reports. Four hotels were certified as five-star ones, nineteen hotels as four-star ones, forty-seven hotels as three-star ones, thirty-one hotels as two-star ones, and six hotels as one-star ones. 323 local companies offered their accommodation to tourists as of late 2016, including 237 hotels (73.4% of the entire number of companies on the market), 44 furnished apartments (13.6%), 2 motels (.6%), six B&Bs (1.9%), 24

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 22, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant confirmed that all of its workers have to undergo a mental examination, the company press service reports. ‘Nearly 2,000 people employed at the head plant must get examined this year. The exams are carried out at our medical unit right on the plant’s premises and are scheduled through August 2017. The entire procedure is coordinated by doctors from Psychiatric Clinic 7 in accordance with the existing protocols. This has nothing to do with the alleged layoffs/redundancies. The corporation’s Director-General Alexander

UrBC, Moscow, June 22, 2017. The amount of Russian companies’ past-due debt repayments rose by 1.7% in April 2017 compared with one month previously, Rosstat reports. The overall amount came to 2.8064 trillion RUR in early May 2017 compared with 2.7586 trillion RUR on April 1, 2017. The figure is also 16% larger than that for April 2016 (2.4197 trillion RUR). The share of past-due debts in the overall debt amount declined by 0.1% in April 2017 and came to 6.9% by the end of the month.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 21, 2017. Italy Meets the Urals Business Forum opened in Yekaterinburg on June 20, with over two hundred Russian companies joining in the event, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department reports. The forum is part of Italy’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia Cesare Maria Ragaglini’s visit to the Mid-Urals. ‘It would be a mistake to think of Russia as isolated from the international business arena. We see this country as our strategic partner. We’ve been working together on these friendly terms for the last three years now,