UrBC, Pervouralsk, October 29, 2015. ChTPZ Group's employees took part in the company's stand-up comedy competition. The event was held at Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant Palace of Culture, the company press service says. Five teams competed for the prize: M/F, Quality Mark, Shop Territory, Good Acquaintances, and Guests from the Future (a team of Pervouralsk Metallurgical School students). The Group has been coordinating similar contests since 2009. In this round of the competition, the first prize went to Quality Mark, so this team will now compete with the other finalists for the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 28, 2015. The number of available job openings on Yekaterinburg banking market went down by 22% in the third quarter of 2015 compared with a year earlier, HeadHunter reports. September’s figures are also 3% below those for August 2015. This year, Banking is still one of the five segments of Yekaterinburg labor market with the greatest numbers of vacancies (11.9% of the entire market against 13.5% last year). In fact, Banking was the second biggest pool of vacancies, preceded only by Sales. As for the number of CVs/job applications, these make up 4.1% of the city’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 28, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region did not become one of Russia’s five constituencies with the greatest amount of commissioned new housing in January-September 2015. Rosstat reports Moscow Region is the current leader, with 7.2% of all new housing in Russia constructed there. This constituency is followed by Krasnodar Territory (6.8%), Moscow (4.6%), Bashkortostan (3.8%), and Saint Petersburg (3.7%). Sverdlovsk Region and Novosibirsk Region (3.4% each) shared the seventh place on the list, directly after Leningrad Region (3.5%).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 28, 2015. The average price of a liter of gasoline came to 35.03 RUR in Sverdlovsk Region in September 2015, which exceeded the figures for July by 2.12 RUR, Rosstat reports. The average price of AI 92 and AI 95 went up to 34.03 RUR and 36.35 RUR per liter, respectively. That of diesel fuel reached 34.8 RUR. In fact, gas prices increased in seventy-five Russian Federation constituencies: by 1.8% or more in five of them and by 2.8% in Kamchatka Territory. Prices also went down in four constituencies: for one, they declined by 0.9% in Ryazan Region. End-user prices

UrBC, Moscow, October 28, 2015. The Russian Government adopted a decree allocating 15,401,498,000 RUR in subsidies to the agricultural sector; the decree is available on the Cabinet’s website. The money will be directed to the federal constituencies which, in their turn, must distribute the money to reimburse their local farmers on the interest rates they pay on their crop-farming loans. Sverdlovsk Region will be allocated 111.545m RUR, while the neighboring Kurgan Region will receive 113.385m RUR. Belgorod Region, Tatarstan, and Kaliningrad Region will receive the largest subsidies:

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 28, 2015. Healthcare funding provided by Sverdlovsk Region Government as part of the obligatory medical insurance package might be reduced to 3.8bn RUR next year, head of the city council’s Healthcare Department Alexander Dornbush said at Yekaterinburg Duma meeting. According to the Duma’s press service, Dornbush explained that the newly adopted unified gender/age coefficient meant the insurer’s reimbursement would come to 180 RUR per hospital visit, whereas in 2014, the figure came to 210 RUR. Also, the allocated funding for Yekaterinburg clinics and hospitals

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 27, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant/ChTZ (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) will deliver seven B11 bulldozers to Russia’s Spetstroy, the Federal Special-Purpose Construction Agency, this October, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘The bulldozers will be sent to the agency’s divisions in Izhevsk, Saratov, and the Kurile Islands, namely, Iturup, where one of our vehicles will be used for infrastructure development,’ the press service says. Spetsstroy’s Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk representative Alexander Gromov came to the plant for the acceptance

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 27, 2015. Yekaterinburg food manufacturers supplied 27.772bn worth of produce to their customers in the nine months of 2015, the city council’s press service reports. There are currently seventy-two food-making companies in Yekaterinburg, making bread and pastry, meat and dairy products, and soft drinks. ‘Our customer preference surveys indicate most locals choose to buy locally made foods,’ the press service says.

UrBC, Moscow, October 27, 2015. Novouralsk might no longer be a limited-entry town after January 1, 2016, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry says in the draft bills uploaded on the federal normative acts website. In fact, as many as six Russian cities might lose their special limited-entry status: Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Novouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region, Zarechny, Pensa Region, Zvezdny, Perm Territory, and Lokomotivny, Chelyabinsk Region. All the technicalities involved are supposed to be dealt with within nine months.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 27, 2015. Under the Russian Government’s program on Boris Yeltsin Ural Federal University’s development in 2010-2020, the university’s funding for the period will be cut by 144m RUR against the original figure. The updated version of the program is now available on the government’s website. The overall budget for the years 2010-2020 now comes to 9.856bn RUR (including 4,98bn RUR to be supplied from the federal budget and 4.876bn RUR expected to be made in terms of profit). Additionally, 12 new monitoring and 7 new performance indicators have been introduced to the

UrBC, Moscow, October 27, 2015. The net profit of Russian companies (excluding small enterprises, banks, insurance companies, and organizations in the civil service sector) is going down; according to Rosstat, the figure went down by 77% in August 2015 compared with one year earlier. Remarkably, Deputy Economics Minister Alexi Vedev said earlier: ‘We have been criticized for our over-optimistic expectations. Yet our net financial outcome is up by 37% in the eight months of 2015 compared with the eight months of 2014.’ Now Kommersant reports the profit growth rate slowed down to 23.9% in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2015. Four employees of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation were awarded Sverdlovsk Region Government's honorary certificates for their work performance, the corporation's press service reports. The awardees made great contribution to the Russian tank-making sector's and defense industry's development. They are: Head of Ural Vagon Zavod Tool-Making Office Evgeniy Kochergin, leading engineer from the Welding Department Mikhail Rozin, combat and special-purpose vehicles operator/tester Pavel Semenov, and leading engineer from Production

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2015. MegaFon Ural looked into its subscriber data to find out residents of which cities seem more interested in numerical effects in the mobile communications sphere, the company press service reports. It follows from the analysis of the telecommunications provider's database that most of its 'good-looking' numbers belong to subscribers based in Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and Surgut. These cities currently host the greatest number of people with the so-called 'gold', 'silver', and 'platinum' digit combinations that

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2015. Ural Airlines is offering special rates on its domestic flights on October 23-26, the company press service reports. The offer is valid for bookings made between October 23 and 26 only for flights to be operated between October 26, 2015 and April 22, 2016. Special rates are offered on all domestic flights operated from Moscow as well as on Novosibirsk-Khabarovsk-Novosibirsk and Irkutsk-Vladivostok-Irkutsk. Tickets can be booked on the airline website, with the help of Uralairlines App or the company's call center as well as at any booking office.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2015. ChTPZ Group held a presentation for representatives of Russia's leading oil and gas companies and the Group's key customers: Gazprom, Transneft, LUKoil, Surgutneftegas, Bashneft, Slavneft, Irkutsk Oil Company, and SIBUR, the company press service reports. The Group made a presentation on its development strategy for 2015-2020. Within the next five years, the company intends to keep growing more financially healthy and gradually reduce its debt burden, which will make it possible to invest in technological advancement to suit the market's

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 26, 2015. The prices of consumer goods and services went up by 11.4% in September 2015 compared with December 2014; a year earlier, the increase stood at 6.1% (September 2014 against December 2013), Sverdlovskstat reports. The overall increase in food prices (including strong drinks) was above that of last year (11.7% against 8.9%). Food items (excluding strong drinks) grew 12.3% more expensive ( against 8.7% a year earlier). Fish and seafood, meat, bread and pastry, milk and dairy products grew 19.2%, 9.4%, 9.2%, and 9.1% more expensive, respectively. The price

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 23, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region-based companies are planning to make 5,109 people redundant (as of October 21,2015), Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department’s report states. These companies are: Rostelecom (320 people), Litoy Element VSMZ in Verkhnyaya Sinyachikha (226 people), Verkhniy Tagil Power Station (262 people). So far, 10,000 locals have already lost their jobs, and only 3,865 people have been able to find a new one. The largest-scale layoffs were registered in ESK Energomost in Yekaterinburg (444 people), Novaya Lyalya Pulp Plant (749 people),

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 23, 2015. Yekaterinburg existing home prices dropped by 5.6% compared with the start of the year and by 6.2% compared with February, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. As of October 19, 2015, the average asking price of a square meter of an existing home in Yekaterinburg came to 71,957 RUR. The market supply is still at its peak: potential customers can choose from 11,600 apartments and 1,900 rooms in communal apartments in the chamber’s database. The supply of two-bedroom apartments has gone by 22% since the start of the year, that of one-bedrooms ones by 37%, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 23, 2015. Seversky Pipe Plant (a member enterprise of OAO TMK) is hosting a show by the U.S.-based Eli Yamin Blues Band, TMK press service reports. The band comprises four virtuoso musicians whose blues took away the breath of listeners in America, China, Mali, Japan, and Europe’s best concert halls. The CC Machine Blues Show is dedicated to the one year since the launch of the company’s new FQM mill, commissioned by Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in October 2014. The machine reached its projected capacity and made 37,000,000 kg of pipes in the course of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 23, 2015. LEPSE (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) got its metrological lab certified for ensuring the uniformity of measurements; the approval certificates are not limited in time, the company press service reports. Following the submission of all the papers (a certification application, the lab’s quality control manual, certificates for standards of units, and data relating to the measuring rooms and the lab workers who do the measurements), LEPSE was visited by Rosakkreditatsiya committee in September. The committee found the lab’s