April 17, 2015. Ural Airlines are offering special rates on their Moscow-Yekaterinburg flights: a ticket for the flight operated between April 16 and May 31 is now available for 3,170 RUR (one way, all fees included). According to the company’s press service, there are currently up to five daily Yekaterinburg-Moscow flights on offer. ‘Airbus liners will take our travelers to Moscow in the most comfortable way possible; all the airplanes have both economy and business class sections, passengers are offered a hot meal, some refreshments, tea, coffee, and soft drinks,’ the airline says.

April 17, 2015. Owner of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company Iskander Makhmudov lost $2.6bn in the course of one year, states Forbes annual rating of Russia’s 200 richest businesspeople. The UMMC owner went down by six positions in the rating and is now in the 29th place. UMMC Trading House DG Eduard Chukhlebov, with $400bn of yearly income, was in the last place. At the same time, Russian Copper Company BOD Chairman Igor Altushkin, with his $1.6bn-income, went up by seven positions in the rating. Viktor Vekselberg, BOD Chairman of Renova Group (Koltsovo Airport shareholder) was among

April 17, 2015. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeniy Kuivashev and UMMC Holding DG Andrei Kozitsyn signed a cooperation agreement on April 16 covering the launch of a high-speed tramway to connect Yekaterinburg and Verkhnyaya Pyshma. Andrei Kozitsyn explains the project will take off after agreements have been signed with the two cities’ councils, upon which Sverdlovsk Region Government will have adopt a special decree on the launch of the tramway before July 1, 2015. The prospective route is expected to span from Prospekt Kosmonavtov Underground Station in Yekaterinburg to downtown

April 17, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation adopted the right policy for Zarechnaya Coal Company in trying to retain its workforce and bring its output back to the 2012 level, the company’s former Director-General Vitaliy Kharitonov said in his interview to Interfax. Kharitonov said the company representatives were negotiating with creditors in Kuzbass, providing feedback to workers, and liaising with the government and surveillance authorities. ‘Their aim is to retain the workforce, live through two difficult years, and then resume the business development. These development plans include,

April 17, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant now manufactures the casing for RT-120, a cushioning part of a freight railway carriage. According to the corporation’s press service, the part itself gets assembled at a certain Russian plant and then delivered to Uralvagonzavod to be mounted on the carriages. ‘RT is a Russian cushioning unit which protects both carriages and their cargo from possible damage, especially from damage that can occur during sliding and shunting operations. Making the casings for the RT-120 is a completely new direction for Uralvagonzavod. The difficulty

April 16, 2015. Ural Airlines launches additional Yekaterinburg-Baku and Yekaterinburg-Yerevan flights. Yekaterinburg-Baku flights are now operated on Saturdays as well as Thursdays, Yekaterinburg-Yerevan ones are operated on Thursdays and Sundays. Besides, the airline’s customers can also fly to Georgia: a direct flight from Yekaterinburg to Tbilisi is available every Monday. Tickets are already on offer. Additionally, a new scheduled flight from Yekaterinburg to Chisinau will be launched on May 15, 2015. The flight will be operated every Tuesday. ‘A convenient timetable will allow

April 16, 2015. Supply on Yekaterinburg existing homes market keeps rising: the number of apartments added to Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s database has been growing by 3% a week for the last one and a half months, the Chamber’s Analytical Department states. The number of apartments available for purchase went up to 9,850 (+26%) since February; that of rooms in communal apartments went up to 1,440 (+20%). ‘In contrast to sellers, buyers haven’t been very active so far this year. The demand dropped noticeably after the end-of-year frenzy. This couldn’t help affecting the prices, which have

April 16, 2015. Lepse (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) reopened its reconstructed foundry facility. Repairs took about three months, the corporation’s press service reports. An overhaul was given to all the pressing, polishing, etching, and galvanizing facilities as well as to all the storage facilities for poisonous chemicals, fittings, and precious metals. Besides, a polishing unit was bought to increase the precision and improve the quality of silver-coating operations. The modern unit traps all the silver dust particles and thus allows for zero loss of the precious

April 16, 2015. MMK and ChTPZ Group’s Coordination Council started working at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). The council meeting was attended by ChTPZ Deputy Director-General for Strategic Cooperation Alexander Golodyagin, ChTPZ Head of Purchases Alexander Kolchin, MMK Deputy Director-General for Sales Nicolai Lyadov, and representatives of ChTPZ and MMK commercial, production, and technical divisions. According to ChTPZ press service, MMK and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant/ChTPZ are working together on their strategic cooperation program targeted at providing Russian oil and gas

April 16, 2015. ChTPZ Engineering (a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) presented its innovative pipe products at the 9th O&G OILTECH Conference in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, on April 14-15. The Group made a presentation on its casing and compression pipes with Premium threaded joints, heavy-duty OCTGs meant for transportation of fluids with corrosive ingredients, corrosion-resistant casing and compression pipes meant for environments with increased sulfur and carbon dioxide content, and cold-resistant casing and compression pipes suitable for extremely low temperatures (-60 degrees centigrade).

April 15, 2015. Ural Airlines are offering their customers a new service: plane tickets can now be booked through a call center. ‘Call 8-800-7700-262 and pay by your Visa or MasterCard right over the phone. Once the payment has come through, your plane ticket arrives in your mailbox,’ the company says.

April 15, 2015. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Emergencies, Colonel-General Alexander Chupriyan paid a visit to Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s heat and power station, the corporation’s press service reports. The visit was part of the official’s business trip to Nizhniy Tagil aimed at inspecting the city’s hazardous industrial facilities. The MoE representative was accompanied by head of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry Sverdlovsk Region division, Major-General Andrei Zalenskiy, head of MoE Ural division, Lieutenant-General Sergei Miroshnichenko, Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergey Nosov, and Uralvagonzavod

April 15, 2015. Russian Copper Company/RCC Group invites everyone to join their first, introductory webinar on Planet Earth and Small Motherland at 5PM Moscow Time on April 15. The webinar will be conducted by Professor of People’s Friendship University of Russia, Director of Center for Innovative Economy under the Russian Academy of Sciences & Russian Ministry for Economic Development’s Productive Forces Research Council Svetlana Lipina. The main idea behind the course is to enhance people’s environmental awareness. ‘We also hope the webinars will motivate our students to design and

April 15, 2015. Sochi no longer remains a popular destination with Yekaterinburg travelers, Tutu.ru’s research findings indicate. ‘Just like in the previous months, most flights operated from Yekaterinburg in March were bound for Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Sochi was in the third place in Tutu.ru’s rating as recently as February, but now the bronze went to Krasnodar, with Sochi dropping to the 11th position. The city is now not even among the top ten most popular places to go to. The share of plane tickets for Sochi flights booked via Tutu.ru dropped from 5.7% in February to 1.6% in March,’

April 15, 2015. The number of vacancies advertised by employers decreased by 34% in March compared with a year earlier, HeadHunter’s research division reports. Most of the vacancies are in sales (40%), IT (14%), banking (13%), and the building sector (8%). At the same time, the number of submitted CVs went up by 42% in March 2015 against March 2014.

April 14, 2015. Ural Federal District-based federal constituencies (Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region) proved Russia’s richest territories, while Sverdlovsk Region was only given the 27th position in the rating, RBC reports. Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region’s average monthly pay to minimum living wage ratio stood at 5.6 and 5.2, respectively, in 2013-2014. RBC research findings indicate that the highest average monthly pay (90,400 RUR) is found in Nadym, Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region. At the same time,

April 14, 2015. New homes prices went up by 3.7% in Sverdlovsk Region in the first quarter of the year; the prices on the existing homes market rose by 0.2%, Sverdlovskstat reports. Prices increased for all types of housing, with average quality apartments growing 5.2% more expensive, enhanced quality ones growing 3.1% more expensive, and premium segment ones growing 2.7% more expensive. As for the existing homes, prices went up by 0.3% for enhanced quality apartments and by0.6%for premium quality ones, whereas low and average quality homes grew 1.3% and 0.1% cheaper, respectively. According

April 14, 2015. The number of credit/debit card transactions made abroad decreased by 20% in the first quarter of 2015 against a year earlier, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s press service says. According to the bank experts, 76,500 transactions were performed in January-March compared with nearly 96,000 a year earlier. UBRD customers usually use their bank cards abroad to pay for their purchases (65,000 transactions) and, less frequently, to take out some cash (5,000 transactions). ‘A drop in the number of foreign transactions was to be expected: tour operators said as

April 14, 2015. Three tanks made at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant, namely, T-34-85, T-72B3, and T-90C, are going to take part in the Victory Day Parade in Nizhniy Tagil, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘Uralvagonzavod vehicles joining the parade has already grown traditional. Our T-34-85 first entered the streets of Nizhniy Tagil on May 9, 1985. The tank was made at the plant in 1945 and mounted on a pedestal next to the main entrance in 1946. In 1985, the tank was driven off the pedestal and (after a quick repair) onto the streets. This vehicle and a number of others have

April 14, 2015. 386,500 used cars were sold in Russia in March 2015, which was 24.3% less than a year earlier (when 510,300 automobiles were sold), Avtostat reports. The used cars market shrank by nearly 20% in only three months and now comes to 1.1m units. 32.5% of all the used cars on the market are LADA makes, especially VAZ 2107, Samara, and 2110. Toyota is still the most popular foreign car, with 40,300 automobiles (over 10% of the entire number) sold in March. Nissan and Chevrolet are the second and third best-selling used cars on the market, respectively. Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen,