The FIFA and the World Cup 2018 coordination committee’s first monitoring visit to Yekaterinburg will take place on May 14, 2012. First Deputy Head of Yekaterinburg Council Sergey Shvindt says this is a very important visit for the Mid-Urals’ capital, as it will determine whether the World Cup will actually be held in Yekaterinburg. The officials expect to visit Central Stadium, Koltsovo Airport, and a number of prospective fan zones. As for the fan zones, Historic Square is currently being considered as the primary location. To ensure safety, the river will be covered with special frames.

Ural State University of Economics is planning to start working on a new study/lab facility as soon as this year. The decision is stated in the university’s Property Development Program approved of by the Learned Council, USUE’s Rector Mikhail Fedorov told UrBC. According to the Rector, the facility is needed in order to introduce new trends into the educational process, namely, biotechnologies and the communal housing services and utilities development center, as well as in order to support the Eurasian Youth Movement. ‘Three wells are about to be finished at the moment. If everything goes

Unilever Rus, which currently owns a 99.48% shareholding in the cosmetics manufacturer Concern Kalina, intends to buy out the remaining portion of the Yekaterinburg-based company’s shares. The company has already placed the proposal to this extent with the stockholders. The shares in question are ordinary registered uncertified ones, state serial number 1-05-30306-D. The suggested buy-out price comes to 4,260 RUR; the list of shareholders will be valid as of June 26, 2012, the 46th day after Concern Kalina has received the buy-out offer.

Ural Airlines keeps expanding the number of international flights taking off from Chelyabinsk. In addition to direct scheduled flights to Vienna, Harbin, and Dubai (launched in the fall of 2011), the company now operates a new Chelyabinsk-Burgas flight. Starting May 25, it will be operated every Friday using comfortable Airbus planes. The round trip tickets can be obtained for as little as 22,800 RUR (all fees included), the airline’s press service reports. ‘Burgas is Bulgaria’s second largest resort. This is a perfect place to spend a family holiday: warm sea, clean beaches, amazing nature.

Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps questioning the legitimacy of an increase in OOO TZK-Aktiv’s authorized capital. The antimonopoly agency believes the business owner Koltsovo Airport failed to provide the natural monopolies regulating body with a petition for the agency to approve of the deal, namely, of an increase in TZK-Aktiv’s authorized capital through a 211.56m RUR investment; Koltsovo Airport obtained the money from the assets of Yekaterinburg-based International Koltsovo Airport’s fuel filling station. This is why the FAS ruled in October 2011

Ukraine’s Railway Transport State Administration’s interdepartmental acceptance meeting was attended by the representatives of the locomotives division administration and the company’s development and technological policies department as well as officials from Lvov Railways, Dnipropetrovs’k National University for Railway Transport, and representatives of the manufacturing plant. They looked into the results of Sinara (2ES6) and Granit (2ES10) freight locos operation tests. The tests were carried out at Lvov Railways. The testing took place between February 28 and March 28, 2012 in the

Ural Instrument-Making Plant is trying to avoid bankruptcy. The company submitted an application to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking for the court hearing to be postponed so that an out-of-court settlement could be reached. The court sustained the petition, and the hearing was put off till June 4, 2012. It was ZAO StroyService that placed an insolvency claim against Ural Instrument-Making Plant with the arbitration court. At the same time, a similar application placed by TyumenEnergoBank’s trustee in bankruptcy Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation on behalf of the bank was

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service approved of the petition placed by OOO KN Estate (based in Moscow and dealing in property rentals) for purchasing 31.3% of Khanty-Mansiysky Bank’s voting shares, which, combined with the voting shares the company had bought earlier, would result in a 51.29% shareholding in the bank, the FAS’s website reports. Incidentally, the decision as to on which terms Khanty-Mansiysky Bank (currently the property of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra) is to be privatized will be taken in the nearest future.

Bank Yekaterinburg and the tax authorities became parties to OOO Cardinal Technoplus’s bankruptcy proceedings. The Federal Tax Inspectorate in Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetsky District applied for being included in the list of creditors (the sum in question comes to 88.22 RUR); so did the bank (the debt comes to 11.16m RUR). The application for declaring Cardinal Technoplus bankrupt was placed with the court by the company liquidator E. Tsyganova. The reason given for placing the application was that the creditors’ claims amounted to more than the debtor’s assets’ worth. The decision for the

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) developed a technology for the production of coin metal with unique properties, the company’s PR Department reports. ‘Experts from Russia’s largest coin-making enterprise GURT sent their technical specifications for the metal meant for ten-ruble coins out to Russia’s leading metallurgical enterprises in 2009. Ensuring the low surface roughness, precise thickness, and a limited hardness range all at the same time was not easy, but our metallurgists managed to do this. A special technology was elaborated at MMK’s Central Control Lab that made it

The Bank of Russia’ PR Department reports Khanty-Mansiysky Bank has had to face administrative liability for the administrative violations described in Article 15.27 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code. The said Article concerns an organization’s failure to meet the AML/CTF legal requirements.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court sustained the claim laid by OOO Outdoor City against ZAO Zeta Motors and made the defendant pay 100,000 RUR. According to the files of the case, the two companies signed an agreement for locating and displaying a number of advertising materials in December 2009. OOO Outdoor City promised to display the ads in Vosmoye Marta St, Malyshev St, and Karl Liebknecht St in Yekaterinburg. The ad campaign services cost 245,580 RUR, but Zeta Motors did not agree to pay a portion of the sum of its own accord and left the plaintiff’s queries unanswered. The court ruled

A Yekaterinburg-based businesswoman insists that OOO Adidas pay the rent it owes her. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court has set the hearing of the case for May 16, 2012. According to the available data, a sole trader Galina Savelyeva wants the company to pay her 5.24m RUR, hand over the shopping premises under the transfer act, and sign the end-of-rental-term contract. The money in question is the rent covered for by the agreement the two parties signed on May 16, 2005 and pertaining to the period between August 27, 2011 and January 20, 2012. Now the defendant’s representative denies the

An American-Russian joint venture for artificial resin production is being set up in Nizhniy Tagil at the moment. The resin is meant to satisfy the needs of the abrasives, friction materials, and tire-making industries. The JV, founded by Uralkhimplast and SI Group, is called Uralkhimplast SI Group and will be located on the premises of Tagil Chemical Park, the company’s press release says. This project is part of Governor Alexander Misharin’s initiative for the creation of a chemical cluster in the Mid-Urals. The negotiations for the project began in 2010, the decision to set up the JV was

According to the Director-General of Mid-Urals Development Corporation Sergey Filippov, all the unfinished construction jobs on the premises around and inside Yekaterinburg EXPO exhibition center will be completed within deadline limits, so all the jobs will be over before Innoprom 2012 kicks off. ‘The recent stoppage had to do with both the weather conditions (repairing the parking lot during the snow-melting period makes no sense) and the prolonged disagreements between the customer and the general contractor, Rusgrad. Now Rusgrad is not happy with the final cost of the construction jobs

Yekaterinburg Municipal Council announced the terms on which the municipal property located at 48A Lenin Ave can be privatized. The premises in question are the basement (Rooms 127-138, 142, 153-156, 190-199) and the semi-basement (Rooms 9, 1-49, 58, 63-67) with the total area of 1,147.7 sq m. These are non-residential premises subject to the terms of a rental agreement with OOO Polimettsentr that has recently been renewed for an indefinite period of time. OOO Polimettsentr is a legal entity in the possession of the restaurant Љvejk and a coffee place called Tchaikovsky. The proposed method

Sverdlovsk Region imported $36.8bn worth of goods and exported $8.51bn worth of goods in 2011, the region’s Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov said at the meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly’s Regional Policies & Local Government Development Committee. ‘The export of machine-building industry-related products amounted to $1.5bn in 2010 and shrank by nearly two times a year later. This was the case because we stopped shipping goods to Iran, formerly our key customer. Our enterprises buy $2bn worth of machine-building products

The American State Street Bank and Trust Company, one of the world’s largest financial institutions and one of the key players in the field, now co-owns Chelindbank: the bank bought a 6.64% stake in the business (53,500 shares), Marker reports. State Street Bank is part of the corporation by the same name, one of the United States’ leading providers of financial services to institutional investors. As of December 31, 2011, State Street was in control of $1.9 trillion, while its net profit dropped by 9% in the first quarter of 2012 and came to $427m. The bank’s quarterly revenues reached

Sverdlovsk Region Natural Resources Ministry rejected Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs’ request to replace the gross emissions reduction indicator with the carbon intensity per ton reduction one. In March 2012, the Union suggested to head of region’s government Anatoly Gredin that the carbon intensity limits recommended to a certain enterprise should be based on those employed for the world’s best mining and chemical & metallurgical enterprises. ‘In order to promote further production development, improve on the quality of machinery and technologies, create

The member enterprises of NLMK Sort (NLMK’s section iron division) sold over 300,000 tons of reinforcing bars, 62,000 tons of metal goods, and 25,000 tons of rolled wire in January-March 2012 (which was, respectively, 5% more, 34% more, and 42% less than in the first quarter of 2011). The companies sold about 390,000 tons of metal goods altogether; this was 10% less than a year earlier. ‘The decrease in the total quantity of metal goods sales was caused by dropping volumes of semi-finished goods and rolled wire export shipments. The decline of export shipments, on the other hand, has meant we