UrBC, Moscow, April 9, 2020. More than a half of Russians with mortgages and car loans won’t be eligible for a ‘loan repayment holiday’ because of the limits set by the Russian Government, Kommersant refers to the United Credit History Bureau’s data as indicating. According to the Bureau, only 49% of mortgage-payers and 45% of people with car loans will be able to apply for a loan break; this amounts to 2.5 million mortgages and 700,000 car loans, respectively. Overall, things look better for credit card holders and people with consumer loans, where 90% (45 million loans) and 75% (32 million

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2020. The number of foreign nationals entering Sverdlovsk Region in the first quarter of the year dropped by 19% against the first quarter of 2019, Head of Migration Department at the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Sverdlovsk Region division Olga Petrova said at a press conference on April 7, 2020. According to Petrova, some 37,500 foreign nationals have entered the constituency since the start of the year. Most of them arrived from the CIS and Eurasian Economic Union member states; the majority of migrants are nationals of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2020. The construction of new living quarters in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy goes on, with extra safety precautions, Director-General at KORTROS Group’s housing developer RSG-Akademicheskoye Viktor Krivoshein said during his first online public address. ‘The construction continues. We are taking all the necessary steps to ensure the safety of our builders and contractors. This is a crucial task in times of the coronavirus pandemic. We keep on working on Blizky Quarter, Quarter Eleven, and Quarter 9 and we are doing it on schedule. All the obligations

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2020. ChelPipe Group’s shareholders Andrei Komarov and Alexander Fedorov and Director-General at the Group’s pipe-manufacturing division Boris Kovalenkov coordinated a series of online meetings with their member enterprises’ teams, ChelPipe’s press service reports. Over 500 employees of the Group’s member enterprises Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) and Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) and from the Group’s Moscow office took part in the online event. The Group’s shareholders and top managers answered over a hundred questions from the employees; many of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 8, 2020. Director-General at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Pavel Shilyayev signed an executive order to adopt a revised job safety and industrial safety policy for the company, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. The revisions were made in order to improve MMK’s job safety and industrial safety management systems in accordance with the ISO 45001:2018 regulations. The revised version of the policy emphasizes MMK’s mission: safe production of quality produce. The company sets the following goals: to achieve zero accident rate; to become the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2020. EVRAZ Holding’s West-Siberian Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ ZSMK) launched CoreTemp, an appliance for continuous measurement of temperature in an electric arc furnace, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. The technology helps prevent metal from overheating, reduce the smelting time, and cut down on the unit consumption of electric power and electrodes. The launch of the new appliance is estimated to save the company RUB 42 million a year. Prior to the launch of the new unit, the steel-smelting operators used to measure the temperature

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 7, 2020. EVRAZ Holding’s Urals-based member enterprises keep working to make their employees’ working conditions safer in times of the novel coronavirus, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. ‘Over a thousand employees who are not involved in our continuous production cycle now work from home; the rest keep working as usual. We make every effort to make the working conditions as safe as possible for employees in the 55-60 age group. People work from home where possible, and all workers over the age of 65 are only allowed to work from home,’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 7, 2020. ChelPipe Group supplied more than 60,000,000 kg of large-diameter pipes for the construction of Gazprom’s pipeline connecting Harasaveysky Field with Bovanekovo Field. The LDPs with corrosion-resistant outer coating and slick inner coating (diameter: 1,420 mm; layer thickness: 27.7 mm and 33.4 mm; steel grade: K65) have been manufactured at ChelPipe Group’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant. The company reports the pipes have enhanced strength and plasticity parameters, which means they can be used in challenging climatic conditions and in temperatures as low

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 7, 2020. Starting this year, MMK Group’s MMK-METIZ will be celebrating its launch date on April 5 rather than October 1, the company’s Director Alexander Mukhin says. ‘Magnitogorsk’s first metal goods plant started operating in September 1941, when evacuated equipment from metal goods manufacturing plants arrived from six Soviet cities. The appliances were housed within two industrial sites, which then evolved into two plants: a metal goods/metallurgical one and a calibrating one. On April 5, 1942, People’s Commissar for Ferrous Metallurgy in the USSR I.F. Tevosyan

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 7, 2020. Residents of Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy supported the doctors and nurses fighting the spread of COVID-19 with a special round of applause last weekend, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s press service reports. ‘At the end of last week, District Akademicheskiy activists started exchanging personal and group messages, calling for support of medical workers. The locals can’t actually get together because of the self-isolation regulations, so it was decided to cheer the doctors with thank-yous shouted from balconies and out of windows at a certain

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 7, 2020. ChelPipe Group installed advanced automatic thermal cameras on site as part of its program to maintain workers’ health and safety and reduce the risks of COVID-19 spreading further. Nine thermal cameras got insulted at the Group’s member enterprise Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) and four cameras arrived at Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe). The appliances can take the temperature of several people simultaneously, which makes it possible to ensure social distancing at entry checkpoints. Additionally, special navigation signs and markings have been

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 6, 2020. MMK Group’s member enterprises and all the divisions at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) appointed the people in charge of enforcing the Open Door Principle on sites. According to the company’s press service, the novel coronavirus is most frequently transmitted through direct contact, which, along with airborne transmission, presents a serious threat to public health. ‘MMK Group’s Open Door Principle helps prevent the spread of the virus and minimize direct-contact transmission. The principle will get enforced at all the entry checkpoints,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2020. Yekaterinburg was featured in the Russian Construction Ministry’s rating of top ten cities with best-quality urban environments in 2019; the rating is now available on the ministry’s website. Yekaterinburg came No. 6 among fifteen Russian cities with the population of over a million people. The ministry gave the city’s urban environment a score of 188. Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Kazan were the top three cities in the rating. Sverdlovsk Region, in its turn, came 66th in the rating of federal constituencies, scoring 172 points. The condition of 46 local

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2020. A special-purpose HQ under Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev was going to hold a meeting on April 3 in order discuss support of local economy and business during the pandemic, Mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Vysokinsky said on air of Echo of Moscow Yekaterinburg. ‘Yesterday, the President provided some new input [during his public address — Ed.] that we now need to work with. The President authorized the constituency governors to deal with their local situations. We are meeting Governor Kuivashev this afternoon to get the final input;

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 6, 2020. Shishimskaya Gorka Art Residence goes online; there have also been changes in the program to do with the international travel ban and self-isolation requirements. A London- and Berlin-based female artist’s May residence has been postponed till a later date. Yekaterinburg-based Anastasia Bogomolova will step in instead, Brusnika’s press service informs UrBC. A multi-disciplinary artist and photo book collector, Anastasia Bogomolova does installations, performances, sculpture, and photography. Her art projects are an investigation into the mechanisms of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 6, 2020. MMK Industrial Park now enforces a set of hygienic and quarantine-related measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. According to the company’s press service, the global coronavirus pandemic is a challenge and strength test for every single business from a smaller company to an industrial giant. The management of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK), in its turn, informed the public immediately of the unprecedented emergency steps taken at MMK Group’s member enterprises (including MMK Industrial Park) in order to prevent the spread of the dangerous

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 3, 2020. Road police offers are now checking the entire traffic around Chelyabinsk Region’s border because of the epidemiological issues in the area, Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s Southern Urals division’s press service reports. According to the press service, the police made all drivers switch to contraflow lane reversal, with only one lane available on the roads now. All drivers and their passengers must get back to where they live. The only exception to this rule are vehicles transiting through Chelyabinsk Region and trucks delivering food and essential

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2020. Rosatom/TVEL’s Rusatom Additive Technologies has come up with prototype samples of Venturi valves used for oxygen masks and is now ready to 3D-print them, TVEL’s press service reports. The need for Venturi valves has soared since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Rusatom can make up to 300 valves a week. The valves get made from bio-compatible polymeric materials and need no additional treatment. Venturi valves get used in combination with oxygen masks for oxygen therapy, providing a lower concentration of the oxygen supplied to the patient. The valves need to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 3, 2020. Fifteen Sverdlovsk Region-based companies that kept on working throughout the quarantine break have been closed forcefully, Russia’s Federal Service of Court Officers’ Sverdlovsk Region division’s press service reports. All the organizations got closed by a court’s ruling. Six of these tried to carry on business as usual in Pervouralsk, and three companies still worked in Yekaterinburg. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order to make March 30-April 5 non-work days last week. Exceptions were made for companies selling essential items,

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 3, 2020. MMK Group’s largest member enterprise Mekhanoremontny Kompleks LLC adopted a set of measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. The steps include informing the company employees about ways to prevent COVID-19, quarantine measures, and disinfecting efforts. Special efforts are made to reduce the number of people per room. According to Director at Mekhanoremontny Kompleks Oleg Shiryayev, the company sent as many of its workers on days off as possible during the non-work week: over a thousand out of