November 16, 2012. Even though a lot of new office buildings are being commissioned in Yekaterinburg at the moment, rent is not expected to go down, RED Management Company reports. ‘Over 100,000 sq m of office space was commissioned in the first half of 2012 alone. A few more buildings are currently being put up. Nevertheless, not only has the average rent failed to go down, but it actually keeps on growing,’ says the company’s Director-General Alexei Klimenko. According to the analysis of the office space presented by Ural Chamber of Real Estate, the rent for Class B+ office comes to 1,190

November 16, 2012. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev is to chair the Mid-Urals Development Corporation (KRSU) BOD, he announced at the Sverdlovsk Region Investment Committee meeting today. ‘KRSU is now facing some very daring challenges and need a powerful lobbyist. It would only make sense if the Governor chaired it,’ said the current Chairman Alexei Bagaryakov. ‘Unless there is a legal obstacle to this, I intend to chair the Board of Directors,’ Kuivashev said. KRSU is to solve the problem of kindergartens shortage in the region; this will be done with the help of borrowed

November 16, 2012. RBC Rating analysts carried the rating of Russia’s largest banks in the nine months of 2012. The rating traditionally features a few Ural banks that have actually improved their positions on last year. For one, Bank Koltso Urala was given the 112th position in the rating based on its asset volume as of October 1, 2012, the bank reports. According to RBC analysts, the bank’s net assets exceeded 30.5bn RUR on the said date, which is 1.2bn RUR more than on January 1, 2012 and 9.7bn RUR more than a year earlier. This growth has meant that the lending institution moved from the

November 16, 2012. VSMPO-Avisma Corporation claims that the steam gas mixture explosion that occurred at the company’s plant in Berezniki, Perm Territory, is not dangerous for the locals. The department where the leakage has occurred keeps on working as usual, the corporation’s press release states. The leakage of the steam gas mixture from the chlorinating facility took place at the company’s chemical & metallurgical shop in Berezniki, Perm Territory, on November 14, 2012. Three workers were killed, with nine more poisoned and hospitalized. The rest of the workers on this shift are

November 15, 2012. ChTPZ Group’s corporate video called ‘White Metallurgy. The Key to Success’ won as many as three prizes in the Best Video competition held among the metallurgical enterprises of Russia and the CIS. Metal-Vision’2012 is held within the framework of MetalExpo 2012, the company’s press service reports. ChTPZ video was selected from 20 clips presented to the board of jurors. What is more, it also won in the Best Directing and the Best Cross-Cutting categories. ‘White Metallurgy. The Key to Success’ dwells upon the company’s new program on training employees for the

November 15, 2012. According to Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s Analytics Department, housing prices in Yekaterinburg have gone up by 8.4% since the beginning of the year. For the last three months, prices have been growing by about 0.2% a week. On November 12, 2012, the median price of a square meter of flats offered for sale on the existing homes market amounted to 69,187 RUR, Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s press service reports. At the same time, the supply has tended to grow steadily over the last two months. On average, the Chamber’s database expanded by 0.5% a week. The number of flats

November 15, 2012. The stockholders of Koltsovo Airport, who are to gather at an EGM on December 3, 2012, were advised to vote for handing the authorities of the sole executive body of Koltsovo Airport over to a management company, the company reports. The agenda of the EGM also covers the issue of an early resignation of Koltsovo Airport’s Director-General Evgeny Chudnovsky and re-assigning his duties to Regions Airports Management Company. In fact, Regions Airports Management Company will also run the airports of Nizhniy Novgorod and Samara.

November 15, 2012. The completion of the fourth BN-800 reactor at Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant and using MOX fuel to power it is risky business, as the technology is not fit for industrial use yet. What is more, this reactor is 1.5 to 2 times more expensive that its modern counterparts, Ecodefense’s press release claims. Environmentalists also warn that this project poses some safety hazards. At least 27 leakages, including some radioactive ones, have been registered at the station, as well as 14 fires. On September 9, 2000, Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant escaped the possibility of an

November 15, 2012. On November 13, 2012 Second Freight Company (VGK), a daughter enterprise of Russian Railways that was set up in August 2010 following the Russian Railways’ management’s decision, was renamed into Federal Freight Company (FGK). Now the former VGK is one of Russia’s largest freight forwarding operators and currently has 135,000 gondola cars, 25,000 carriages, and about 11,000 platforms in its fleet of vehicles.

November 14, 2012. A contest called Man of Labor 2012 was held at Uralvagonzavod for the first time this year. The contest is open to young male workers with varying specializations. All of the contestants are employed with Uralvagonzavod Corporation head office and its member Uralcryomash. The competition aims to show that blue-collar workers possess not only professional expertise but also a broad outlook and great creative potential, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The contest is designed in such a way as to have the participants demonstrate their knowledge of arts and

November 14, 2012. ChTPZ Group presented its stand to the participants of the metallurgical industrial exhibition Metal-Expo 2012. This year, the pipe manufacturers’ theme is the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Such a choice was made because the Group’s head company, Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant, is to celebrate its 70th anniversary this year, the company’s press service reports. ‘The life story of companies comprising ChTPZ Group is the life story of the great endeavor of its workers who did their best for the sake of their Motherland. The metallurgical industry workers are generally

November 14, 2012. A local resident appealed to Customer Support Center of Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene & Epidemiology Center’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary in order to get advice on the legitimacy of Rostelecom’s actions, the press service of Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor reports. The man signed a landline use agreement with Rostelecom for local calls and with MTT for long-distance and international calls. For three months, he kept making long-distance and international calls and suddenly got a 2,000-ruble bill from Rostelecom in mid-January 2011. Then, in November 2011 and in

November 14, 2012. Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS) Director-General Andrei Romanchenko and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev met in Moscow on November 12 to finally agree on the mechanisms of transferring ownership rights over Yekaterinburg TV Tower to Sverdlovsk Region. This unfinished tower is located in Stepan Razin St, RTRS press service reports. The meeting was also attended by Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Public Property Management Alexei Pyankov, RTRS First Deputy DG for Corporate Governance Pavel Stepanov, and Director of RTRS regional office

November 14, 2012. The deputies of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly adopted a draft bill on introducing a patent taxation system in the region in the first reading. The project is being developed due to some changes in the Russian Federation Tax Code that mean that on November 1, 2013, a special new taxation regime called the patent taxation system will come into effect. The patent tax is expected to come to 1,000 RUR a month for renting an office and the transportation services tax is to come to 336 RUR (in Sverdlovsk Region) and to 605 RUR (in Yekaterinburg).

November 13, 2012. A turner from Uraltransmash (a member of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) A. Sabitov won the third prize in the professional skills competition (Glory to the Man of Labor) held in Ural Federal District. Sabitov won in the Turner category, Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. This district-wide professional skills competition for turners took place in Magnitogorsk on November 8-9, 2012. There were 19 contestants altogether: six students from vocational schools and 13 professional turners. The contest comprised two stages: theory and practice. The

November 13, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s museum now features a one-person exhibition where the works of a well-known Nizhniy Tagil-based artist and teacher as well as a master of landscape-painting Dmitri Kavalershin are presented. The exhibition opens in the year of the artist’s 110th birthday and is the first one organized after his death in 1952, the corporation’s press service reports. A member of Russia’s Union of Artists since 1939, Dmitri A. Kavershin had to relocate from Stalingrad to Nizhiy Tagil in 1941. He worked at Uralvagonzavod as a painter for

November 13, 2012. Uralcryomash (a member of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) mastered the production of chemical tanks 15-157-02 meant for transportation of sodium hydroxide, Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. This kind of produce was handed over to Uralcryomash by the head office because the latter is very busy. In the past, Uralvagonzavod had made about 200 units of this make altogether. Chemical tanks were a new product type for the cryogenic plant, but, despite the product being new and despite tight deadlines, the production has already been launched. The

November 13, 2012. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is now considering the possibility of making additional medium-term investments of $100m in the development of its Turkish asset MMK-Metalurji in order to cut down on the prime cost and enhance production efficiency, the company reports. MMK is considering, among other things, putting up an OxiCup-type shaft furnace and a briquette-manufacturing facility (which will reduce the company’s dependence on the scrap metal/rolls price ratio and will allow for effective use of industrial waste and replacement of purchased pig iron with the

November 13, 2012. 11 criminal lawsuits were instituted in Sverdlovsk Region that were related to unlawful use of funds in the communal housing services sector. According to the investigative team, the total damage done to the regional and federal budgets and some for-profit organizations amounted to more than 108m RUR, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Investigative Committee’s Investigative Administration reports. For one, criminal action was taken by the Interregional Investigative Departments of Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Kamensk-Uralsky, Asbest, Talitsa, Kachkanar,

November 12, 2012. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is now considering the possibility of making additional medium-term investments of $100m in the development of its Turkish asset MMK-Metalurji in order to cut down on the prime cost and enhance production efficiency, the company reports. MMK is considering, among other things, putting up an OxiCup-type shaft furnace and a briquette-manufacturing facility (which will reduce the company’s dependence on the scrap metal/rolls price ratio and will allow for effective use of industrial waste and replacement of purchased pig iron with the