UrBC, Moscow, April 20, 2020. RosSet’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems (FGC UES) started getting their electric grid and mains ready for the winter/fall season of 2020/2021, FGC UES Ural’s press service reports. This year, RUB 13.7 million will get directed to repairs. The repairs will involve power substations and electric mains in 79 different parts of Russia. This will ensure a reliable electric power supply to end users even during the peak workload months. In the season of 2019/2020, the company already managed to bring its accident/outage rate down by 12%. 39 transformer

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2020. Ural Airlines operated their special-purpose Flight U6 3622 (Bangkok-Kazan-Ufa), taking 179 Russian nationals back home from Thailand, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘The special-purpose flight was operated on April 16, with 179 passengers on board. 111 people were headed for Kazan and 68 people for Ufa. The flight landed in Kazan at 11:15 PM and then in Ufa at 04:20 AM on April 17 (local time). The flight for the Russian nationals was operated in accordance with the Rosaviation-approved evacuation schedule,’ the press service says. The airline

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 20, 2020. ChelPipe Group’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant is working on a project to upgrade the plant’s large-diameter pipe quality control system. Before the end of the year, two new laser control units will get launched on site, and an ultrasound testing unit will also get launched in 2021. The project will require more than RUB 150 million worth of investments all in all. ‘The new appliances will make it possible to detect surface defects of a steel sheet and to control the quality of the welded seam and the area around it. This means zero faulty metal sheets will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 20, 2020. The housing developer Brusnika came up with a manifesto dwelling on the current economic situation and on what the home buyers should expect in time of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The company says they are keeping track of the Russian Government’s orders and decrees and adjust the work at their construction sites accordingly and in full in compliance with Rospotrebnadzor’s requirements so as to get the buildings commissioned on time. Sales are now fully converted to an online format. ‘We are fully aware the home buyers are worried about the construction

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 20, 2020. RUB 7,827,634 worth of donations have been collected in Metallurg Charity Foundation’s donations account as of April 16, 2020. The goal is to support the elderly of Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ (MMK) press service reports. The fundraising event is part of MMK Group’s charity project to support the seniors living on their own, who are now having a hard time in self-isolation that has been imposed on the Russians in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The project aims to help seniors in the 65+ age group whose incomes

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2020. Investigative authorities took criminal action, with charges of fraud, on the case involving the transfer of a land allotment for Bazhovskaya Underground Station, Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities’ press service reports. The public prosecution authorities’ investigation revealed some instances of malpractice relating to the way the land allotment was handled. According to the authorities, ‘one of the heads of an organization’ entered inaccurate information about the land allotment in the state register in 2015-2017. Instead of ‘a 280-slot

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2020. DeloBank reduced the acquiring commission it charges online stores down to 1%. Additionally, for the first time the bank’s customers can also sign up for the online acquiring services on their own. According to the bank’s press service, DeloBank came up with a simple payment widget that you can install on your online shop website without an IT professional’s assistance. You don’t need to know anything about coding, as all you have to do is copy a ready code the bank provides and locate it in the respective section of your online shop. The bank’s

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 17, 2020. Given the dire shortage of medical-grade face masks during the current coronavirus pandemic, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK)-supported social-sector organizations started sewing reusable masks for MMK Group’s employees. According to the Group’s press service, S. Ordzhonikidze Metallurgical Workers’ Culture Palace is one such organization. Workers from the wardrobe/sewing department put off making new costumery for the performers for the time being and turned to sewing the vital masks. Dress Designer at S. Ordzhonikidze Metallurgical Workers’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2020. EVRAZ Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ NTMK) and EVRAZ Kachkanarsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (EVRAZ KGOK) purchased special-purpose equipment for sanitizing vehicles, workplaces, production departments, shower rooms, and bus stops. EVRAZ Holding Ural’s PR Department reports spraying apparatuses and air recirculation units are now being used to disinfect the two companies’ work spaces. ‘A spraying apparatus is 16 liters large and is used for disinfecting buildings, flights of stairs on production sites, rooms where the day’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 17, 2020. Ural Airlines operated a special-purpose flight on Thursday to take 152 migrant workers home to Uzbekistan. According to the airline’s press service, the flight was not part of the evacuation flight program and was operated with active support from Human-Rights Ombudsperson in Sverdlovsk Region Tatyana Merzlyakova, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Federal Migration Service, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers, the Consul-General of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Yekaterinburg, and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 16, 2020. Innoprom International Industrial Exhibition was originally canceled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, yet the event will still take place: in a digital format, that is. According to the project coordinators, Innoprom’s first online session will take place on April 15. According to Sverdlovsk Region Government’s officials, Innoprom will be held on the platform INNOPROM ONLINE this year; every Wednesday, sessions on a range of different topics will be available online. Sverdlovsk Region’s Investment & Development Minister Viktoria Kazakova

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 16, 2020. Sverdlovsk Region paid RUB 95.3 billion to the Russian Federation’s consolidated budget in the first quarter of 2020, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 13.3%. According to the local division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s press service, payments to the federal budget amounted to RUB 39.3 billion in the first quarter of the year (up 27.6%, or RUB 8.5 billion, on a year earlier). The better part of the federal budget revenues stems from inside-Russia VAT payments (65.2%), corporate income tax (25.8%), and VAT payments on goods imported

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 16, 2020. NEYVA Bank supports small and medium enterprises in the time of volatile economy and COVID-19 pandemic: the bank is willing to offer a number of its business customers special terms on settlement and cash services. According to the bank’s press service, customers with Discounter, Light, Bazovy, Universalny, and Maximalny monthly subscriptions will have to pay no commission in May, as all the advance payments for April will get transferred to the following month. The offer applies to businesses with no commercial transactions in their settlement accounts

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 16, 2020. ChelPipe Group successfully went through with re-engineering its HR management and payroll preparation processes; as a result, the Group’s pipe manufacturing division’s five production sites all work under a single HR management and payroll preparation information system, which made all the processes much more efficient and reduced the amount of paperwork needed. According to the company’s press service, the Group chose one of Russia’s leading consultants MOLGA Consulting as its partner for the project involving 15,000 employees. After the company came up

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 16, 2020. Miners at EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Coal Company’s Raspadskaya Mine have extracted 2,000,000,000 kg of coal since the start of the year so far. According to the company’s press service, three mining teams and six developing ones contributed to this achievement. Alexei Ivanov’s team from Section 17, with its 690,000,000 kg of coal, proved especially successful. Vadim Sychev’s team from Section 10 extracted 650,000,000 kg of coal and Andrei Kireyev’s team from Section 1 extracted 550,000,000 kg of coal. Drifters working on new coalfaces also produced

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 15, 2020. EVRAZ Kachkanarsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (EVRAZ KGOK) installed forty new conveyor-belt-type gravimetric feeders for the raw stuffs used in sinter preparation; the company also upgraded its automatic system for controlling the batching out of furnace charge, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. ‘The furnace charge (concentrate, lime, and coke) now gets loaded into the system automatically, with high-precision control for the amount of every component used. We also had the automatic sampler upgraded to ensure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 15, 2020. Following the leading global air carriers’ lead, Ural Airlines started using part of its fleet for operating cargo flights. According to the air carrier’s press service, the airline currently has enough orders to keep busy till the end of May 2020. ‘The number of passenger flights has gone drastically down for the time being. At the same time, the demand for cargo flights is soaring, with priority given to essential commodities, COVID-19 medications, medical appliances, protective gear, and so on. This is why the airline decided to use part of its

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 15, 2020. The telecom company MegaFon launched over a hundred new 4G base stations in fifty towns in Sverdlovsk Region, making the users’ mobile Internet connection even faster and even more reliable. According to MegaFon Ural’s press service, the company’s tech team used big data and custom-designed AI solutions to predict the increase in voice traffic in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy, VIZ, Pionersky, Yugo-Zapadny, Uralmash, Elmash, and the centrally located parts of the town. ‘New telecom appliances got installed in thirty-one streets in advance; the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 15, 2020. NEYVA Bank now offers its customers one month of settlement account administration commission-free. According to the bank’s representatives, NEYVA Bank aspires to be more business-friendly, so there will be no fees for the administration of a cash/settlement account for one month. ‘Many businesses are finding it hard to manage: they need to transform their business models, hold emergency meetings, and analyze their sources of income and expected spending. Some people will start looking into ways of cutting costs. We are ready to support you now and help

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 15, 2020. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has been contributing to the social welfare program My Vmeste, with the goal of supporting the elderly of Magnitogorsk living on their own in times of self-isolation. As of April 13, 2020, RUB 6,997,157 got transferred to the program’s donations account from both legal entities and private individuals. According to MMK Group’s press service, Metallurg Charity Foundation’s employees put together and delivered to Magnitogorsk’s social welfare centers care packages with eight different kinds of food items. Over 4,000