March 27, 2014. In 2013, the court officers of Sverdlovsk Region received 833 court warrants relating to transfer of foreign residents and apatrides to special establishments for people detained for administrative offenses and their deportation from the constituency, the press service of Sverdlovsk Region Service of Court Officers reports. Court officers instituted 863 enforcement proceedings relating to deportation, and 792 foreign residents were actually deported as of January 1, 2014. 'What makes the process difficult is that these foreigners do not have any ID, so no tickets can be

March 27, 2014. The Russian Federation Emergency Ministry issued a decree awarding the Marshal Vassily Chuikov Medal to the head of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ, a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) Fire Fighting Department Valentin Tambovtsev and his deputy Sergey Ponichev. 'The company firefighters have been taking care of fire safety at both ChTZ and a multi-storey apartment block in Churilovo (Tractorozavodskoy District of Chelyabinsk) for the third year now. The plant's firefighting team unit is located right next to the newly built apartment buildings as well

March 26, 2014. The catering business in downtown Yekaterinburg and the ones close to sports facilities will have to get their menus translated into English and other foreign languages by the start of the world football championship in 2018, Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg for Consumer Market & Services Vladimir Bolikov said on air of Open Studio Yekaterinburg. According to Bolikov, the café and restaurant staff will also have to speak Engish if they want to host the World Cup visitors. ’22 of our restaurants employ chefs from the far abroad. The staff (at least one or two people in every

March 26, 2014. Ural Airlines and its German partners, KolnTourismus and Duty Free Heinemann, prepared some nice gifts for passengers flying to Germany, the airline’s press service reports. After the passengers check in for their Moscow-Cologne or Cologne-Moscow flight, a special coupon will be given to them along with the boarding pass. If you make at least €100 worth of purchases at Cologne Bonn Airport’s Duty Free Heinemann shop within one month of the check-in date, the coupon entitles you to a free 500ml bottle of Hennessy. In addition, passengers flying from Moscow to Cologne are given

March 26, 2014. An interdepartmental committee made the decision to launch the industrial production of the new V-46 diesel engine for T-72 tank at Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant in March 1974. ‘The production launch was preceded by a lot of efforts on the part of the plant’s diesel design office headed by Ivan Trashutin and his deputies Victor Spassky and Semyen Muzikus. All three of them were the inventors of the changes incorporated into the engine design and received the USSR State Prize for this. The production workers headed by the plant’s Director-General Grigory Zaichenko, Chief Engineer

March 26, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities and Sverdlovsk Region interdepartmental public prosecution authorities for the environment checked compliance with the environmental legislation during the preparation of site for Sverdlovsk Region hi tech Universitetsky Park in Yekaterinburg. According to their press service, the contractor cut down 4 hectares of woods when preparing the construction site around Lake Shartash. ‘The approximate amount of timber came to 1,200 m3, yet the contractor did not have any logging permits. According to our preliminary estimates, the

March 26, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region tax authorities received about 60,000 personal income statements from private individuals as of March 1, 2014, the press service of Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. According to these tax declarations, taxpayers are to direct nearly 50m RUR to the local budget. Over 43,000 taxpayers applied for property-related tax deductions and some 16,000 applied for tax relief. Such applications will result in 1.905m RUR that will be paid back to the taxpayers.

March 25, 2014. Uraltransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) is going to expand its tramway production to 250 to 300 units a year, the company DG Alexei Noskov said at a recent meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Designers Union. According to the corporation's press service, he said in his presentation that over the years the company's tram production department had developed seven different tram makes and a range of their modifications. The trams produced by Uraltransmash are used in Yekaterinburg, Moscow, Samara, Nizhniy Novgorod,

March 25, 2014. A unique technological process that allows for much greater wear-resistance of pumping and compression string couplings was recently patented by Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member of ChTPZ Group). PNTZ thus became Russia's first pipe manufacturer to introduce the thermodiffusion zinc coating technology for pumping and compression string couplings with the use of zinc powder that has nano-grain surface structure, the company's press service reports. The idea is to use totally new zinc powder for thermodiffusion coating whose particles are covered with some

March 25, 2014. Starting from January 1, 2014, MegaFon subscribers located in the Mid-Urals have downloaded over 1.5 petabytes if data, which is 90% more than a year earlier. This data traffic equals a million films, which is comparable with the collection that Russia's State Film Fund, the world's largest cinema archive, has, MegaFon's press service reports. Yekaterinburg residents set a record in terms of mobile Internet connection use among Sverdlovsk Region-based customers. MegaFon subscribers in Yekaterinburg download an equivalent of 135,000 movies (some 200, terabytes)

March 25, 2014. One of Logopark Pyshma's creditors, Linartico, appealed to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking to declare the general creditor meeting and its results illegitimate, the court's papers state. The company representatives also ask that Logopark Pyshma's trustee in bankruptcy postpone the first creditor meeting till after the court makes a ruling on all the creditors' claims submitted within the time limit provided. Now Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court declared Logopark Pyshma insolvent on November 25, 2013; the insolvency claim was submitted by

March 25, 2014. The Russian light commercial vehicle market might sag considerably enough in 2014, LCV sales might drop by 15% to 20%, GAZ Group LCV Development Director Pavel Sereda told reporters. 'We definitely expect a certain decline given the current economic situation. Our forecast is a decrease of 15% to 20%,' Sereda said. He explained the decrease would have to do with the weakening of the ruble that will affect foreign car sales first and foremost, Prime reports. The European Business Association announced at the beginning of January that new LCV sales were expected to

March 25, 2014. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) increased its output of goods with polymeric coating by nearly a third last year, MMK Senior Manager for Local Sales of Coated Metal Goods & Tin Products Sergey Pikalov announced at the 9th International Conference on Zinc-Coated and Painted Rolled Stock Production & Consumption Trends. MMK produced 1,170,000,000 kg of coated metal goods in 2013, which was 29% more than in 2012. The company made 825,000,000 kg of galvanized products (+40.5% on 2012) and 345,000,000 kg of products with polymeric coating (+7.8% on 2012) last

March 25, 2014. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) increased its coated products output by nearly one-third in 2013, Senior Manager of the company's Local Coated Metal Goods Sales Department Sergey Pikalov announced at the 9th International Conference on Zinc- and Paint-Coated Rolled Products. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works produced 1,170,000,000 kg of coated metal goods in 2013, which was 29% more than in 2012. 825,000,000 kg of galvanized rolled stock were made (+40.5% on 2012) and 345,000,000 kg of rolled stock with polymeric coating (+7.8% on 2012). Such a considerable

March 24, 2014. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) and Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation signed a cooperation agreement in the field of cadre training. The document was signed right after the closing ceremony of the annual conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs that was, among other things, dedicated to setting up a totally new employment structure and employment terms as well as to improving the quality of industrial cadre training, PNTZ press service reports. It was suggested that companies could learn from

March 24, 2014. Visa and MasterCard blocked all of SMP Bank’s card transactions this morning without any preliminary warning, the lending institution’s press service reports. ‘Our customers, however, can take out any amount of money via our ATMs and cash desks as well as via any of the 23,000 ATMs that the United Settlement System comprises,’ the bank reports. All the other transactions, including cashing in on deposits and payment transactions, are available as usual and without any restrictions. The bank has not been informed on cancellation of services on the correspondent accounts abroad

March 24, 2014. As of March 18, 2014, 21.3bn RUR worth of taxes flew in Sverdlovsk Region budget, which was 0.9% less than a year earlier. The corporate income tax revenues were down by 27.5% (2.3bn RUR), yet the personal income tax revenues rose by 22.7% (the same 2.3bn RUR), Sverdlovsk Region Finance Ministry reports. ‘In 2014, Sverdlovsk Region’s economy has been stagnating so far, which tells upon the local budget revenues,’ the ministry explains. All in all, 21.3bn RUR worth of obligatory payments were made to the federal constituency’s budget as of March 18, 2014. This comes to 14.2% of

March 24, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Ministry made 19 of its most popular services available electronically. 11 more services will become available online within the next two years, the Ministry’s press service says. All in all, the Ministry offers locals 30 types of government services, including 18 services in the field of land law, 10 services in the field of cultural heritage protection, and 2 other types of services. Converting government and municipal services into an electronic format is one of the key areas in the government system of governance’s at the

March 24, 2014. A walking tour of the would-be fan zone for the world football championship of 2018 was coordinated in Yekaterinburg recently. The zone will be 1.5 hectares big and is large enough to host 5,000 to 7,000 people. The site will probably be ready by the beginning of summer. A 60-square-meter screen (Russia’s biggest) will be installed there, the city news portal says. ‘Yekaterinburg will host the World Cup matches in 2018, so this year the Mid-Urals’ capital can have a rehearsal of sorts. The rehearsal will consist in creating a fan zone in our Central Culture & Leisure Park

Recently it’s been fashionable to talk about a new wave of economic crisis. Production is in stagnation despite the constant modernization course. Professional staff regularly appears in the labor market though employers complain that there is nobody to be hired. Oil and gas sector remains the only significant source of budget revenues, while the basis of the economy - small and medium business - suffers from corruption. And all these features are very familiar to us. Once again, the regions are elaborating projects to attract foreign and domestic investment in their development by