UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 10, 2017. MegaFon’s subscribers made 12.5m phone calls and sent 18.5 texts between 6PM on December 31 and 6AM on January 1; according to the carrier’s press service, these more conventional ways to connect with others proved more popular with the Urals-based subscribers than messenger applications (some 4m messages were sent through these). ‘On this New Year’s Eve, locals spent longer on the phone with their best wishes and season’s greetings: a phone call was four minutes long on average, which is twice as long as one year previously,’ the company press service

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2016. Yekaterinburg is currently Russia’s fifth most expensive housing rental market, according to the website Mir Kvartir. At the moment, renting a studio apartment in Yekaterinburg costs 15,848 RUR a month (down 4.4% on the previous quarter); a one-bedroom home can get rented for 21,130 RUR a month (up 7.6% on the previous quarter), and a two-bedroom one for 34,982 RUR a month (up 3.1%). The average rental prices rose by 7.8% altogether in the course of the last twelve months. Moscow is predictably the priciest rental location, where a month’s rent for a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2016. Ural Airlines offered its services to 6.4m passengers this year, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 18%, the air carrier’s press office reports. ‘Interestingly, the Russian air carriers’ overall passenger traffic actually declined by 5% against last year,’ the press service says. In addition to an increase in passenger traffic, the number of flights Ural Airlines operated this year also went up by 10%, while the air carrier’s fleet of vehicles got complemented by three new aircraft. ‘We also introduced new flight destinations and expanded

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2016. Every one in six MegaFon subscribers owns a 4G mobile device, the telecommunications provider’s press service states. The 1,000,000th gadget registered with MegaFon network happened to be a smartphone; these actually make up 82% of all 4G devices within the company network. The company’s 4G Internet traffic rose by 78% in the second half of the year and now comes to over 2m Gb a month, which is comparable to downloading some 300,000,000 songs. November proved a peak LTE traffic month for MegaFon, in many ways due to extremely cold weather: smartphone

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2016. EVRAZ Holding is going to present over 24,000 children in Nizhniy Tagil and Kachkanar with New Year’s gifts, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. Toys and sweets are meant for the children of the company employees as well as those living in foster homes and children with disabilities. ‘Our employees’ children will also be able to enjoy a number of theater shows during the New Year’s break. A fairly tale called Two Princesses and A Firebird and a New Year’s quest Morozko will be staged at Culture Palaces in Nizhniy Tagil, and a number of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation rounds the year up with impressive production and financial performance results, the company press service reports. Year’s revenues come to 141.9bn RUR, which is 30% better than one year earlier and 11% better than the all-time high of the year 2012. This was possible due to increased export of military goods and restoration of the company’s railcar-making branch. The company’s military goods exports and railcar output rose by 2.2 times and 2.4 times, respectively, against last year. Not only does the plant sell more goods

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 29, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) made more profit in commissions the bank charged small and medium enterprises in the third quarter of the year compared with one year earlier, the bank’s press service reports. The figure rose by 66% in the course of one year and came to 296.4m RUR. This was mainly brought about by the increase in the amount of settlement and cash payment services offered to businesses. The number of customers who applied for banking services with the UBRD went up by 11.8% in QIII’16 compared with QIII’15.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 29, 2016. The developer RSG-Akademicheskoye put up some 100,000 m2 of new housing in Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District, the company Director-General Viktor Kisselev said at a press conference. ‘We reached this year’s target output figures as early as November and sold 105,000 m2 worth of new housing since the start of the year. This year proved a little better than last one, so the target figures for the year 2017 will go up from 100,000 m2 to 105,000 m2. Sales are also expected to increase,’ Kisselev said. According to Kisselev, the per-square-meter price

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 29, 2016. Ural Airlines now operates direct flights from Saint Petersburg and Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel, the air carrier’s press service reports. Flights will be operated every Thursday and Sunday starting from March 19. Prices start from 8,000 RUR (one piece of luggage under 10kg included) for Saint Petersburg-Tel Aviv flights and from 8,350 RUR (one piece of luggage under 10kg included) for Moscow-Tel Aviv ones. ‘The departure and arrival times are scheduled conveniently for those wishing to plan their trips by the minute. For one, you can

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 29, 2016. Twenty-six New Year’s Eve parties will be coordinated for children of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s employees and everyone else in Nizhniy Tagil during this holiday season. 17,656 children will be given candy and chocolate as presents, the company press service reports. ‘An ice sculpture park was put up next to I.V. Okunev Culture Palace by order of Ural Vagon Zavod. This year’s theme is reminiscent of a special date for the Soviet film-making company Soyuzmultfilm (which was founded eighty years ago this year), so the thirteen ice sculptures represent

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 29, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) supplied four B10M.600 bulldozers to Chukotka by order of the company Iceberg, the corporation’s press service reports. According to the company’s Far East Sales Director Anton Sokolov, the bulldozers were first sent to Vladivostok by rail and then to a place called Lavrentia by sea. From there, the vehicles traveled to smaller settlements; the bulldozer meant for the remote location Neshkan, inhabited by hunters and reindeer breeders, had to be taken there by helicopter. Neshkan is located

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 28, 2016. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems got the protection relays and automation systems upgraded at its 500-kilowatt Tarko-Sale Power Substation in Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region, the company press service reports. The new equipment will be used on Tarko-Sale-Svetlaya main and was necessary to get connected to Tyumenenergo’s 110-kilowatt Svetlaya Substation. The relays are resistant to outside temperatures and have a self-diagnostics option. Their function is to prevent short-circuit failures. Tarko-Sale Substation has been in use since

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 28, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation recently held a meeting on the introduction and implementation of job standards in the company’s personnel management system. According to the company press service, twenty-one heads of personnel departments from the corporation’s twelve member enterprises (Burevestnik Central Scientific Research Institute, Electromachine, ChTZ-Uraltrac, Omsktransmash, 144 BTRZ, and others) attended the event. The meeting participants mostly talked about how to adjust to the recent legislative changes and how to introduce job standards at

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 28, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon managed to maintain running infrastructure despite the recent anomalously cold weather (forty degrees centigrade below zero) in the Urals, the company’s press service reports. Wednesday, December 21, proved the coldest day of the week, with outside temperature dropping below forty-two degrees centigrade below zero in certain locations in the Greater Urals. Still, MegaFon’s mobile connection quality remained very high, with the connection itself available in 99.9% of cases (which is even better than the 95%

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 28, 2016. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development, the general contractor for the reconstruction of Yekaterinburg Arena Stadium in time for the World Cup 2018, reports the stadium will get commissioned in about twelve months, the company press service says. ‘The perimeter of the would-be stadium is now complete: there are eight pylons to support the roof, metal structures of the roof itself, concrete structures of the northern and southern spectator stands, and almost complete structures of the western and eastern stands (these are now seven levels high). We are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 28, 2016. Yekaterinburg-based developers are going to get 900,000 m2 of new housing commissioned by the end of the year, head of city council Alexander Yakob said at a press conference. One year earlier, the figure was 1.197m m2. ‘This has been a difficult year for the building industry, due to economic circumstances, among other things. Quite a few developers chose to stick with finishing their older projects and never started any ones,’ Yakob said. Nevertheless, the final figure might still reach 1m m2.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 27, 2016. A solemn end-of-year ceremony took place at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s Culture Palace, the plant’s press service reports. Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh, Sverdlovsk Region Industry & Science Minister Sergei Perestoronin, and Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergei Nosov all wished the plant workers happy holidays. Kholmanskikh said in his address that ‘a company with a potential like this, with a strong engineering school and a great team will always be needed, even

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 27, 2016. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) introduced an automated ferrous alloy treatment system at the plant, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. ‘We now operate two ferroalloy smelting chambers with an automated tracking system, feed-control sensors, and scales. Each of the two chambers is meant for a particular type of ferrous alloys, so new treatment systems make it easier to get additives ready for smelting,’ the press office says. A steel-smelter’s assistant enters the necessary amount of ferrous alloys needed for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 27, 2016. SKB-Bank made a special New Year’s offer available for corporate customers and sole traders between December 22, 2016 and February 24, 2017, the bank’s press service reports. Customers applying for a settlement account online within the given period will receive a bonus (interest on the amount of money in the account at 5% annual rate) within the following three months. The offer holds for Partner+, StartUp+, and TestDrive+ packages.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 27, 2016. Ural Airlines added yet another A320 plane to their fleet of vehicles, the air carrier’s press service reports. The company currently operates thirty-eight planes all in all, including twenty A320 ones, eleven A321 ones, and seven A319 ones. The new plane arrived in Yekaterinburg last weekend. Mechanics are now busy getting the aircraft ready. The airplane is expected to debut in company colors as soon as December 27. Ural Airlines have been renovating its fleet of vehicles since 2006, adding new aircraft every year. The plan is to purchase three more