October 2, 2012. The tractor manufacturers from Chelyabinsk assembled a new make of the wheeled bulldozer BKK-2 that is more multi-purpose than the earlier version, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. ‘This is a multifunctional vehicle. When BKK-2 is fitted with spiked drums that look a bit like asphalt rollers, it works as a compactor and is meant for flattening solid consumption waste at the city’s waste landfills. It is several times more effective than its bulldozer counterpart,’ says Deputy Chief Designer of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant Vladimir Kokoryukin. The new vehicle

October 2, 2012. Yekaterinburg was given the right to hold the world football championship 2018: the final list of participant cities was announced on Saturday, September 29. Among these cities also are: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Sochi, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Samara, Saransk, and Volgograd. Russia was granted the right to hold the World Cup 2018 in December 2010.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s daughter enterprise ZAO Ural Heavy-Duty Vehicles celebrated its 10th anniversary recently. Heads of the corporations, fellow workers, and business partners arrived on the premises to congratulate the company staff,’ Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. ‘Thanks to your great professionalism, enthusiasm, and caring attitude to our business Ural Heavy-Duty Vehicles is developing dynamically these days and is Russia and the CIS’ largest supplier of railway and road-building vehicles in Russia,’ said Deputy

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2012. Sputnik hockey team held its first home match of the Senior Hockey League’s Season of 2012/2013. The Nizhniy Tagil team had the Senior Hockey League first-timers from Kazakhstan, Karaganda-based Saryarka Hockey Club, over on the re-polished ice, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s HR Director Sergey Saranchuk congratulated the team and the supporters on the start of the season on behalf of the club’s primary sponsor, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation. He wished many victories to the hockey

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2012. Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation is starting to sell the assets of OAO Uralfinprombank. Put to auction are some lots, including OOO Best Bottling ($1,335,000); OOO TPK Uralobuv (119,191,771.15 RUR); OOO Vetta-Invest ($1,028,240); OOO Vetta-Invest ($95m); and Universitetsky Building & Housing Co-operative, the state corporation’s website reports. The bank was declared insolvent in accordance with the ruling of Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court on February 7, 2011. Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation acts as the trustee in bankruptcy

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2012. Another auction aimed at selling the right to sign a rental contract for the land allotment in Sysert District that belongs to the Federal Housing Construction Facilitation Fund fell through: the fund did not receive a single application from bidders. The fund put up to auction a land allotment in Sysert District near the settlement of Kolos. The land allotment was meant for multi-faceted area development and (later) housing construction. The area of the allotment comes to 433,792 sq m.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2012. OOO EC The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals upgraded the turbochargers at the heat-and-power station in the village of Kharp. To get the job done, the company signed an agreement with GE Jenbacher, while the contractor called OOO Baltic Turbo performed the work. According to GE Jenbacher, the upgrades of turbochargers PBS NR 17 and NR 20 will ensure more reliable performance of the station’s basic equipment and will improve its maintenance characteristics. ‘This means cutting costs during the production of heat and electric power, and, in the end, lower

UrBC, Moscow, September 27, 2012. Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov informed the senators of the budgetary performance in 2011. According to Siluanov, the year was finished off with the budget surplus for the first time since 2008. He stressed that this trend was expected to continue in the coming years, the Soviet of the Federation’s press service reports. The Minister also said the regions’ investment spending increased by 20% last year. ‘The budgets of the federal constituencies were administered stably, this stability being greater than in 2010,’ he noted.

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, September 27, 2012. In 2012, Krasnodar Territory Administration held its yearly contest of joint stock companies’ annual reports for the 9th time. This was done within the framework of the International Investment Forum Sochi-2012. The annual reports were evaluated by an independent board of experts chaired by Deputy Governor of Krasnodar Territory Ivan Peronko. In this contest, the annual report of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was given the 1st prize in the Best Electronic Annual Report category, the company reports. The report’s printed version was given the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, September 27, 2012. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) produced 600m tons of hot-rolled goods. This is a record-setting figure in the company’s history as well as the highest one among all the Russian ferrous metallurgical enterprises. ‘It is symbolic that the plant’s rolling department workers set this record in the year when MMK celebrates a special anniversary: the enterprise turned 80 on February 1, 2012. There are many glorious pages in the book of MMK’s forming history. July 27, 1933, when the first ingot was made at blooming mill 2, is

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2012. The share of office space available for rent in Yekaterinburg might drop back to the pre-recession figures by 2014, Director-General of OOO Ural-Hermes Alexander Zasukhin told UrBC. The amount of good quality office space in Yekaterinburg has more than tripled since 2007. According to the city council’s forecasts, the total area of office realty is to rise to 1.65m sq m by 2020, while the number of up-to-date business centers will come to 91. ‘This has to do with the fact that the buildings being commissioned at the moment are primarily the ones that

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2012. The Municipal Unitary Enterprise YekaterinburgEnergo took out a 100m RUR bank loan to pay its energy resource suppliers; the loan was secured by the city budget, Yekaterinburg Council’s press service reports. 80m RUR was used to pay the debt to Uralsevergaz and 20m RUR was transferred to Khimmash. This means the natural gas network operators were able to resume supplying gas to the local boiler houses.

The Ural Parent Committee appealed to the Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation Pavel Astakhov, asking him to look into the actions of Talk Fusion that appears to look like a pyramid scheme. The organization actually involves minors into its activity, President of Ural Parent Committee Evgeny Zhabreyev told UrBC. According to Zhabreyev, Astakhov has already decided to investigate the issue. Talk Fusion has been very active in Yekaterinburg recently; experts believe this organization has all the characteristics of a pyramid scheme and has

Diplomatic mechanisms will be used to promote Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region, and Yekaterinburg’s application for hosting World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020. The possibility of using these mechanisms was discussed at Governor Evgeny Kuivashev’s meeting with heads of Yekaterinburg-based diplomatic missions on September 25. This proved a very lively discussion. It was decided to hold such meetings on a regular basis and to have the next one as soon as January to exchange the latest news on how the city’s EXPO 2020 application is progressing, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s PR Department

Russian Copper Company (RMK) was given the 46th position in the traditional rating of non-public companies carried by the Forbes magazine, RMK’s PR Department reports. For the purposes of the rating, companies are ranked according to their revenues in 2011. Russian Copper Company’s key financial performance indicators have been growing steadily for the last few years due to the ongoing upgrades projects (which are part of the company’s long-term development program), proactive policy on securing the group’s raw materials base, and clever management. The company’s production capacity currently

In the first half of 2012, the agricultural insurance market in Ural Federal District rose by 133.5% and came to 332m RUR (against 142.2m RUR a year earlier). At the same time, the Russian market volume dropped by 22% on the first half of 2011 and amounted to 7.04bn RUR, AlfaStrakhovaniye’s press service reports. In Ural Federal District, the amount of insurance payments went up by 11.5% and reached 23.9m RUR, while on the Russian market on the whole, the amount of payments declined by 24.8% and came to 2.64bn RUR.

The air pollution rates declined in Yekaterinburg when compared with the year 2010, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service Administration reports. Sverdlovsk Region Government adopted a decree on the state report On the Condition of & Protection of Sverdlovsk Region Environment in 2011. According to this paper, the amount of harmful emissions decreased in 2011 in comparison with 2010, and Yekaterinburg is no longer on the list of highly polluted cities. ‘The air pollution rates in Yekaterinburg dropped from Very High in 2010 to High in 2011 (the atmospheric impurity index went down

Great Britain and Russia (and Sverdlovsk Region in particular) are ready to increase their mutual goods turnover and to expand their multilateral cooperation. This was discussed at the regional First Vice Premier Vladimir Vlasov’s meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom to Russia Tim Barrow today, Sverdlovsk Region’s Press Service Department reports. The economic cooperation between Sverdlovsk Region and Great Britain has a long history behind it and is now on the rise. The region and Great Britain’s trade turnover came to more than $475m in 2011,

No deceived private investors who lost their money in housing schemes will be left in Sverdlovsk Region by the start of 2013, the region’s Construction & Infrastructure Development Minister Dmitri Niskovskikh said today, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s PR Department reports. Today, the region’s Governor Evgeny Kuivashev and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Security & Anti-Corruption Committee Alexander Khinshtein visited a construction site in Uktus, where as many as four new apartment buildings are being put up. The building jobs are not being done fast enough, as an examination by

Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation are going to look into the activity of UTair Aviation Company in terms of flights safety, the authorities’ press service reports. ‘Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation coordinated an inspection of how UTair Airlines officials comply with the legislation on the safety of flights when they coordinate the pilots and other workers’ performance and when they make sure the aircraft are fit for use,’ the agency reports. The checks have to do with the fact that on September 8, a part of a wing (the aerodynamic shroud of the