UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 30, 2016. ChTPZ Group and Surgutneftegaz signed a cooperation agreement valid through 2020. The paper was signed in Surgut last week, the Group’s press service reports. ‘ChTPZ Group and Surgutneftegaz are long-time partners who share the same values: both companies pay special attention to production culture, work on import substitution, and keep improving our produce quality. The agreement is meant to strengthen our ties and to make our relationship a more efficient one, especially in the research and development sector,’ says the Group’s Director-General Alexander

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 30, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation is presenting its high-precision twenty-first-century weaponry at the DEFEXPO 2016 Exhibition in India on March 28-31, 2016, the company press service reports. ‘This is the first time our unique tank unit with a time-fuzed HE fragmentation shell detonation function designed for time-fuzed detonation of 125mm ZVOF128 rounds with fragmentation shells ZOF82 on trajectory has been presented at an international exhibition. This model outstrips all the existing counterparts,’ the press service says. The time-fuzed detonation unit can

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2016. Residents of Yekaterinburg have failed to pay 4.519 RUR worth of housing bills by March 1, 2016, the city council’s press service reports. In fact, only 89% of all the housing bills got paid in January and February 2016. In the meantime, the figure stood at 95.79% throughout the year 2015. ‘Unpaid housing bills put the entire supply system in jeopardy and might result in operation problems. We are now taking all the available legal steps to encourage the debtors to pay,’ the press service says.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2016. The price of gasoline on Sverdlovsk Region market came to 34.35 RUR per liter on average this February, Rosstat reports. AI-92 and A-95 now cost 33.46 RUR and 35.88 RUR per liter, respectively, while diesel fuel grew slightly less expensive and now comes for 36.22 RUR per liter. On average, gasoline prices rose by 9.7% in February in sixteen federal constituencies (the price increase ranging from 0.2% in Tyumen Region to 18.6% in Omsk Region). In Yakutia, gas prices remained the same as in January, while in Sakhalin Region and in Leningrad Region, prices

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2016. A new system for metal spending control has been introduced at EVRAZ NTMK converter shop. The goal is to make the steel-smelting process more economically efficient, the company press service reports. ‘To make sure we can control the amount of metal used, electronic weighing equipment remains active throughout the entire production process. The first round of weighing occurs at the mixer stage, where a load of metal is placed onto a scaling platform. The amount of product is then checked again at the converter department and then again in the pouring

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2016. Ural Airlines operated this year’s first Yekaterinburg-Rome flight the other day, the air carrier’s press service reports. 125 passengers flew from Yekaterinburg to the Italian capital on March 27, 2016. ‘The sky was overcast in Rome, but, according to the weather forecast, the sun will soon come out and travelers will be able to enjoy the city in all its grandeur. The Trevi Fountain, the Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, St. Peter’s Basilica, and other famous landmarks are awaiting their admirers,’ the press service says. Ural Airlines operates scheduled

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil held an auditors’ meeting, the company press service reports. The workshop was attended by internal auditors from fifteen of the corporation’s member enterprises, including UVZ-Logistik (Moscow), TzNIIM (Saint Petersburg), Electromachines (Chelyabinsk), Plant 9 (Yekaterinburg), and Ural Vagon Zavod (Nizhniy Tagil). This was one of the steps on the way to introducing an internal audit system at Ural Vagon Zavod Scientific & Production Corporation. For two days, the auditors looked into the way

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2016. Ural Airlines are not planning to resume operating their Turkey-bound flights any time soon, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘Ural Airlines are not going to resume operating flights to Turkey until the relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey have been settled at the very top,’ the press service reports.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2016. Ural Locomotives (a joint venture run by Sinara Group and Siemens) won Russia’s Business Leaders Contest as the Best Import Substitution Project, the company press service reports. The company was awarded for its successful launch of Lastochka (ES2G), Russia’s first high-speed electric train. The train was manufactured and certified in 2014 and was introduced at Moscow and Sverdlovsk Railways as soon as the following year. The company produced twenty-three high-speed trains last year altogether, all of which were handed over to Russian Railways. This year,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon signed an agreement with the Russian Football Union to become the general partner of all the Russian championships in 2016-2018, the company press service reports. ‘This partnership with MegaFon makes it possible to work on socially important projects; for example, we have been coordinating The Future Depends on You, a championship for children living in foster homes all over Russia, for a decade now. Also, MegaFon helps us to keep promoting football nationwide,’ says Russian Sports Minister and President of the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2016. Omsk division of Russian Machine-Builders’ Union, chaired by Senior Designer of Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) Igor Shumakov, recently held a meeting, the corporation’s press service reports. The meeting participants looked at the division’s performance in the last five years and came up with an action plan for the coming months. The meeting was attended by Omsk Region Industry, Transport & Innovative Technologies Minister Igor Lukyanov and forty-two members of the Russian Machine-Builders’ Union local division. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2016. MSP Corporation (a state-run organization for the development of SMEs) and Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation signed a cooperation agreement. The two parties intend to work together to give small and medium enterprises more involvement in the corporation’s purchasing policy, the company press service reports. UVZ Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko signed the paper on Ural Vagon Zavod’s behalf and Corporation MSP’s Director-General Alexander Braverman signed the paper on behalf of his organization. The idea is to advise SMEs on Ural Vagon Zavod’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2016. Police officers from Yekaterinburg division of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Department and officers from Police Station 9 identified and detained three people suspected of crimes against property, the department’s press service reports. Two Yekaterinburg residents and a native of Nizhniy Tagil are charged with armed assault, robbery, and theft committed in December 2015. The suspects presumably attacked mobile phone shops, as one of them was actually employed as a sales assistant in one of such stores. The information he had about

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2016. 4,041 new cars were sold in Yekaterinburg in the first two months of the year 2016, which was actually 30% less than one year earlier, Auto-Dealer-Yekaterinburg reports. The market shrank by a quarter in February, with local dealers selling 2,333 automobiles (-25%). Broken down by the most popular brands, the sales figures look like this: 571 Ladas (the current bestseller on Yekaterinburg market), 529 Toyotas (the best-selling foreign brand at the moment), and 310 Hyundais. The latter is now among the three brands whose sales decreased the most over the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2016. Over a hundred children living in Sverdlovsk Region’s foster homes and boarding schools for orphans took part in a football championship dubbed ‘The Future Depends on You,’ the telecommunications provider MegaFon Ural, one of the championship sponsors, reports. Games are held in Yekaterinburg, Verkhniy Tagil, Kamensk Uralsky, Maly Istok, Nizhniye Sergi, and (for the first time this year) Pervouralsk and Nizhniy Tagil. Eighteen games were held and over fifty goals were scored altogether. The first prizes in both the junior and senior contests went to the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2016. Ural Airlines operated this season’s first flight to France, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘This year’s first Yekaterinburg-Paris flight was operated on March 24, 2016, with over 120 passengers on board. The scheduled flights from Yekaterinburg to Paris and back will now be operated every Thursday,’ the press service says. The airline says there is a special offer on flights departing on March 31, April 7, and April 14 – tickets can be booked for 16,800 RUR (round trip), all fees included. You have to travel there and back within seven days to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko and Czech Export Bank’s Director-General Karel Bureš signed a memorandum on the restructuring of debt occasioned by the delivery of technological equipment to the corporation in 2007. According to the company press service, the paper was signed during the Czech-Russian Intergovernmental Committee on Economic, Industrial, Scientific, and Technological Development. The loan was restructured at 2.9% a year through the year 2021. The paper-signing ceremony was attended by

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2016. Akademichesky proved the city’s most comfortable and developed district, N1. RU reports. Yekaterinburg residents were asked to assess the district they live in against fifteen infrastructure parameters. It appears that overall, people (wherever they live within the city) are the least happy with the traffic situation and the quality of roads and the happiest with the number of shops and with friendly neighbors. According to the survey findings, people living in Akademichesky complain mostly about the traffic jams and shortage of parking lots, while all the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s budget deficit came to 8.584bn RUR in January-February 2016, the Finance Ministry’s website states. Budget revenues amounted to 17.138bn RUR (9.7% of the target figure for the year), budget expenses reached 25.722bn RUR (13.5% of the target figure). Sverdlovsk Region’s state debt came to 67,980,958,000 RUR on March 1, 2016.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2016. Sinara Development (a member enterprise of Sinara Group) commissioned 210,500 m2 of housing and commercial estate in Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, and Volgograd Region last year, the Group’s press service reports. In Yekaterinburg, the first extension of Krylov, a premium class condo near Central Stadium, was commissioned in 2015, as was The Gulf Stream, a set of five apartment buildings in Mashinnaya St and Luganskaya St. The company commissioned 164,600 m2 worth of housing in the city altogether. In Volgograd, the Group commissioned Vertical, a set of