April 29, 2015. Workers of Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant, Ural Railway Machine-Building Design Office, Ural Transport Machine-Building Design Office, Uralcryomash, and UBT-Service headed for the streets of Nizhniy Tagil to join in the traditional spring clean. ‘The annual clean-ups have a long tradition in Nizhniy Tagil. The first such event took pace in 1932, when the construction of the machine-building giant barely started. Not a single year has been skipped since then, the spring cleans were there even during the war,’ the corporation’s press service says. For one week, the

April 29, 2015. Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh gave out state awards to Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant/ChTPZ Department 6 foreman Sergey Nenakhov and Hot-Rolling Department 1 mill operator Evgeniy Zibarev. ‘Sergey Nenakhov, who has been working at the plant for forty years now, was awarded the title of Honored Metallurgist of the Russian Federation. He heads one of the plant’s largest departments, the legendary LDP Department 6. Last year, the company produced 1,000,000,000 kg of large-diameter pipes (up 40% on the

April 29, 2015. Ural Electrochemical Plant’s overall revenues from selling goods, work, and services came to over 20.5bn RUR in 2014, which was 5.9% more than a year earlier, the company’s Director-General Alexander Belousov said in the course of a press tour. According to Belousov, the plant’s net profit came to 6.1bn RUR last year. The annual capacity factor stood at 93.8%. ‘Our revenues have remained at around 20bn RUR for the last few years, and we expect the figure to remain approximately the same in 2015. This unfailing output figure means the company is using all of its facilities to

April 29, 2015. MegaFon, the telecommunications group, organized a round of All-Russian football championship for children from orphanages and special-needs boarding schools, the company’s press service reports. The championship is already past the semi-finals stage, with over eighty players competing for the privilege of representing Sverdlovsk Region in Sochhi. The team of Maloistoksky Foster Home was No.1 among junior teams and players from Tobolsk Foster Home proved the strongest among the adolescent teams for the third time this year. In addition to football games, MegaFon also offered

April 29, 2015. Russian Copper Company coordinated an environmental event called The Green Trail for milled-level and high school students of Tominsky, Chelyabinsk Region; this was part of the company’s new environmental project, RCC press service reports. Students from grades five to nine took part in the quest. The Green Trail is a sort of a scavenger hunt with questions to answer from the fields of environmental studies, chemistry, physics, geography, biology, and the nature of the Arctic; there was also a number of mystery boxes and tasks to identify the tunes and songs about nature based

April 28, 2015. Saint Petersburg-based Armored Vehicles Repair Plant 61 (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) repaired 11 T-34-85 tanks and 9 SU-100 self-propelled guns in preparation for the V-Day Parade in Moscow’s Red Square. ‘The legendary combat vehicles from the war times are going to enter the country’s No.1 square for the second time this year. They were first used in the parade five years ago, when the 65th anniversary of winning the war was celebrated. Coincidentally, these were the same foremen and workers who repaired the vehicles this year and back then,’ the

April 28, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s revenues rose by 14% in 2014 compared with the year 2013 and amounted to 128,123m RUR, the company’s press service reports. The Group’s gross profit went up by 31%, its EBITDA increased by 25% and came to 22,741m RUR. The company’s EBITDA profitability rose by 1.5% and thus reached 17.7%. Even though the group’s sales were up last year on a year earlier, the operating performance results were badly affected by factors beyond the company’s control such as the unstable global economic situation, rising metal prices, and increased volatility of the foreign exchange

April 28, 2015. 260,800 new passenger and commercial vehicles were sold in 25 Russian cities with population of over 500,000 people in January, February, and March 2015. This was 41% less than a year earlier. The market shrank more noticeably in these cities than it did in the country on the whole (-36%), Avtostat reports. The car markets declined by over 50% in three cities: Ufa (-59%), Tyumen (-55%), and Yekaterinburg (-52%), while those of Novosibirsk (-29%), Togliatti (-32%), Kazan (-33%), Naberezhniye Chelny (-33%), and Krasnodar (-34%) look a bit better than others.

April 28, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises are faced with the shortage of funds necessary to work on import replacement, Sverdlovsk Region Industry Minister Andrei Misyura said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘For import replacement to become a reality, quite a lot of money needs to be invested in R&D and production expansion. Not every enterprise can afford this, as quite a few businesses’ profitability still remains considerably below the Central Bank’s refinancing rate,’ he said. According to the Minister, there are, nevertheless, 126 large-scale import replacement

April 28, 2015. Sberbank cancelled rental agreements for 177 of its branches in large Russian cities, the bank’s press service reports. Sberbank decided to annul rental agreements for 177 of its branches located in cities with population of over 100,000 people. The decision had to be taken because, despite the earlier arrangements, the owners refused to reduce the rent and keeping these offices therefore grew inexpedient,’ the press service explains. For one, Sberbank branch in ComsoMall Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg will be closed down, as will the one at 61 Lenin St in Chelyabinsk. The

April 27, 2015. Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK Board of Directors met on April 23 to announce that the company’s annual general meeting would be held at 1/15 Kotelnicheskaya St in Moscow at 12 PM on June 23, 2015. TMK BOD proposed the following agenda for the meeting: the company’s annual report, the annual accounting report, distribution of profit made in the year 2014, and electing the BOD members. The following candidates were proposed: M. Yu. Alexeyev, E.E. Blagova, P. O’Brien, A.B. Chubais, B. Foresman, A.Yu Kaplunov, I.B. Khmelevsky, S.T. Papin, D.A. Pumpyanski, O.A. Shchegolev, A.N.

April 27, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation is getting all the interior and exterior finishing jobs done and engineering infrastructure installed at the head plant’s polyclinic now. According to the corporation’s press service, the clinic is being put up to the schedule, with the opening ceremony expected in three to four months. ‘The interior of the multi-storey hall is now being finished. Thanks to a glass roof, the atrium will be completely filled with day light. Also, two panoramic-view elevators made of highly durable glass will be provided. A touch-screen infomat will be installed next

April 27, 2015. Rimera’s R&D Center and ChTPZ Engineering (both parts of ChTPZ Group) presented their new, advanced drilling equipment at the 12th International Machine Mining 2015 Conference/Exhibtion, the Group’s press service reports. Among the developments presented was a highly reliable, dirt-proof, piston-type protector with a dynamic labyrinth seal, a protector with a retainer ring which ensures the inside of the protector remains airtight, 0615 Series compressor pumps which are suitable for substances with increased mechanical admixtures content (up to 1 gram per liter), and

April 27, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s UVZSHOP.ru now sells DVDs with videos dedicated to combat vehicles made at the corporation’s head plant both at all of its outlets and online. Now all those interested in documentaries and indie films about Russian armored vehicles can buy movies such as T34, the Victory Weapon and Tanks: The Ural Nature. ‘Both films are a story of how Uralvagonzavod’s famous combat vehicles were created and what challenges their creators had to overcome. T34, the Victory Weapon also tells the viewers about the theory behind the unique T34 and about how all the

April 27, 2015. 24% of Urals-based companies have had to face layoffs in the last nine months or are planning to let some workers go in the near future, director of HeadHunter’s Ural branch Anna Khvostova says. ‘Additionally, 9% of local businesses had to cut their workers’ pay by 10% to 15% on average. This was mainly true of office workers, blue-collar workers, reporters, and people in the banking and logistics sectors,’ Khvostova said. According to the executive, Yekaterinburg labor market is nevertheless still in a much better condition now than in was in the recession of 2008 and 2009.

April 24, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s food prices rose by 11.4% in March 2015 compared with December 2014; this was 4% more than in March 2014, Sverdlovskstat reports. Food items (excluding alcohol drinks) grew 12.4% more expensive (compared with 3.9% a year earlier). Vegetable prices rose the most, that is, by 47.9%; for one, garlic and cabbage grew 1.8 times more expensive, onions and cucumbers grew 1.6 times and 1.5 times more expensive, respectively, while the price of carrots, frozen vegetables, and potatoes, went up by 43.7%, 42.8%, and 36.1%, respectively. Fruits grew 34% more expensive;

April 24, 2015. The National Rating Agency confirmed the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s national rating at AA, their press service reports. The agency stressed the bank’s prominence on local markets, successful implementation of a chosen strategy, unfailing financial performance, and a conservative approach to risk assessment. The bank is believed to take counter-cycling measures quickly when necessary, which means the company can both react to changing macroeconomic factors and maintain a good asset and liabilities ratio as well as remain solvent and make sure its working

April 24, 2015. Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant’s Power Generating Unit 3 was stopped for scheduled repairs till May 27, 2015. This is the world’s only power-generating unit with a fast-fission reactor that produces electric power on an industrial scale. The unit has generated nearly 135bn kilowatt-hours of electric power in the last thirty-five years and is now responsible for 10% of power output in Sverdlovsk Region. Says Deputy Chief Engineer for Repairs Vladimir Zenitz: ‘The repairs are in full swing; the unit undergoes a wide variety of repair operations every four years; every specific

April 24, 2015. An agreement was signed by Uralvagonzavod Corporation and a number of Cuban industrial enterprises at the 13th Intergovernmental Russian-Cuban Trade & Economic and Scientific & Technological Cooperation Committee meeting in Kazan. The corporation’s press service reports UVZ Logistic, Cuba’s Grupo GESIME and Cuban Railways signed an agreement in the presence of Russian Vice Premier Dmitri Rogozin. The plan is to set up a transportation and logistics joint venture and to get the facilities of Planta Mecánica, a machine-building plant, upgraded. The plant will then deal

April 24, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant is now hosting an exhibition dedicated to the plant trade union’s 80th anniversary, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘The plant’s trade union is the largest one in the machine-building sector. The union was set up in 1922 when the construction of the industrial giant started; the first Collective Agreement was signed in 1933, and the first committee was selected at the trade union meeting in May 1935, which date is considered to mark the establishment of the union,’ the press service says. The opening page of the plant’s first