UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 26, 2011. A picket to protect the dwellers of Revda’s ZhBI district was held next to the building of Sverdlovsk Region Government. The picket was coordinated by a local NGO called Clean Yard – Clean City and attracted a number of local non-governmental and political organizations and representatives of ‘green’ movements from Revda and Yekaterinburg. The picket’s main slogan sounded like this: ‘We Want to Live!’ Now ZhBI district is one of Sverdlovsk Region’s most environmentally troubled areas. ‘Sredneuralsky Copper-Smelting Plant is located right next to the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 26, 2011. The construction of a major railway line connecting Obskaya and Korotchayevo (the so-called Severny line) has been postponed for two months, RZhD-Parnter, an online resource reports referring to The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals Corporation. The company announced earlier that the construction would start with a bridge across the River Nadym on June 27, 2011; before this, the deadline for launching the bridge had been set at the end of May. ‘The construction of the bridge is now expected to begin in September,’ The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 25, 2011. The meeting of the Law Enforcement Agencies Control Committee and Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Penitentiary Service was dedicated to the conditions in which the suspects and the convicted individuals live in Yekaterinburg detention ward No. 1 in Repin St, Oblastnaya Gazeta reports. ‘Both the regional and the municipal authorities have done a lot and keep working on making Yekaterinburg an investor-attractive city that is comfortable to live in. The city hosts events of global importance like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit or the

UrBC, Moscow, July 25, 2011. The cost of introducing high speed train links in the Urals, in Siberia, and in the Far East (with speed at 160 to 200 km per hour) is estimated at 0.9 to 1.2 trillion RUR, if the complicated climate conditions and the area relief are to be taken into account, Russian Railways’ annual report for the year 2010 states, according to Interfax. The railway company feels it would be expedient to introduce such links (at some indefinite point in the future) between Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul, and Kemerovo, between Chelyabinsk and Novokuznetsk and Yekaterinburg,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 25, 2011. Yet another tenant, a bookstore called Knigi No.1, is leaving Mytny Dvor Mall in Yekaterinburg. Now the bookstore opened last year. The workers admit to the fact that the place is closing, but avoid giving the reasons for the decision taken. This is actually not the first time a tenant has left the mall lately. Brunch, Nord, Steilmann, North, Calvin Klein, Mexx, Kati Klaime, Rostic’s, Dom Posudy, and Euroset left the place a while ago.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 25, 2011. The United States Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg announced the launch of a new system of making visa interview appointments. ‘The U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the consulates in Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok are switching to a new visa interview appointments system: starting August 1, 2011, no fee will be charged for any services, including calling the information center and making an appointment. Starting August 1, all the visa applicants can obtain all the visa-related information via the consulate website. The site will become

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 25, 2011. ‘The demand for tours to the Czech Republic keeps going up, the flights from Yekaterinburg to Prague are operated on a daily basis, and an additional direct flight to Carlsbad has been introduced this year. This is likely to remain the case for the next two years as well, despite the growing prices. The thing is, there is just no alternative to the Czech Republic as far as some kinds of holiday-making are concerned. For example, plenty of tourists come to Carlsbad to stay at some health farm, as this place offers the perfect value for the money. Our Russian

The consortium of Russian Directors Institute and Expert RA (a rating agency) promoted Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) corporate governance rating to eight (on a ten-point scale), which corresponds with the Well-Developed Corporate Governance Practice on the National Corporate Governance Rating scale. This means the company complies with the Russian corporate governance legislation, follows most of the recommendations prescribed in the Russian Corporate Behavior Code and some of the recommendations prescribed by the advanced international corporate governance policy. According to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 20, 2011. There are 188 industrial enterprises in Sverdlovsk Region, storing a total of 8.5 billion tons worth of accumulated waste. This makes the Mid-Urals one of Russia’s most polluted places, which is exactly why the regional authorities pay so much attention to environmental issues, the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s press service reports. ‘Sverdlovsk Region is now really one of the country’s most environmentally troubled areas. 6% of the region’s population live under condition of multi-faceted chemical pollution. These are naturally not good figures. We are

UrBC, Moscow, July 20, 2011. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service took legal action against Uniastrum Bank: the bank is suspected of violating Article 14 of the Federal Competition Protection Act (unfair competition). The FAS had received citizens’ complaints regarding the bank’s refusal to let them top up their deposits, even though the deposit agreements provided for the opportunity to top up the account. The case will be heard in court on September 19, 2011.

UrBC, Moscow, July 20, 2011. The draft new version of the Russian Federation Civil Code contains a new requirement for offshore companies: they will now have to disclose the names of their beneficiaries, Vedomosti reports. The availability of such information is a sine qua non proviso for doing business in Russia, the new amendments say. A legal entity is prosecuted for misinforming the authorities or for backing out of providing these data. The amendments do not specify, however, how such a legal entity shall be prosecuted for the offense. The proposed version of Article 51 makes it

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 20, 2011. An airplane of UTair Airlines operating a flight from Irkutsk to Novosibirsk and then to Yekaterinburg had to perform an emergency landing at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Department of Emergencies explains it was reported from Novosibirsk airport that some pieces of rubber were found on the runway after the plane had taken off. This is why when the plane landed at Koltsovo a short check flight had to be performed for the airport staff to examine the chassis. After it had been determined that the main chassis

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 19, 2011. Sredneuralsky Copper-Smelting Plant signed an agreement according to which its buildings, facilities and land allotments are mortgaged to secure its debts to Bank VTB. This is over $19m worth of borrowed money, the company’s official statement says. The two parties evaluated the mortgaged assets at 2.58bn RUR, which comes to 13.83% of the issuer’s total asset value (roughly 18.65bn RUR by the end of the first quarter of 2011). The money is to be paid back in 540 days within the date of signing of the agreement and its coming into full effect.

UrBC, Moscow, July 19, 2011. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service took legal action against Investtorgbank: the bank is suspected of violating Article 14 of the Federal Competition Protection Act (unfair competition). The FAS had received a citizen’s complaint regarding Investtorgbank’s refusal to let him top up his Perspective deposit, even though the deposit agreement provided for the opportunity to top up the account. The Service detected that the bank had not been accepting any deposit top-ups since May 2010; this involved Perspective deposits with the deposit period of 732 and 1,097

UrBC, Moscow, July 19, 2011. Nordea Bank came up with a performance report for the first half of 2011. The bank’s capital rose by 7.6% against the first half of 2010 and reached 29.59bn RUR; the bank’s assets increased by 25.4% and came to 198.63bn RUR. In the second quarter of the year, the bank’s consolidated lending portfolio amounted to 157.15bn RUR, which was 7.7% more than in the second quarter of 2010. Nordea Bank’s net profit came to 1.36bn RUR. The company explains a decrease in profit (compared with a year earlier) has to do with a number of factors: a drop in interest rates and in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 19, 2011. Yekaterinburg Leninsky District Court supported the requirement of Oktyabrsky district’s Public Prosecutor regarding the dismantling of a 3 by 6 meters advertisement on the front side of Sony Center store at 84 Malyshev St in Yekaterinburg, and the dismantling of a 0.8 by 2 meters advertising tower on the lawn next to the store. The dismantling has to be done by the entrepreneur who had the advertisements installed. The prosecutor took action following an inspection by the City Council Municipal Property Management Department; it was alleged that the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 18, 2011. A meeting in support of holding the 2018 world football championship in Yekaterinburg will take place in the city on July 29, 2011. Yekaterinburg is actually on the list of Russian cities that will be among those hosting the World Cup, but the final decision has not been made yet. In case Yekaterinburg does get to host the event, this will be the first time in history the championship is held in two parts of the world at the same time, that is, in Europe and Asia. Also, if Yekaterinburg hosts the World Cup 2018, the locals will get to see some of the

A federal digital broadcast network will probably be launched in Sverdlovsk Region in 2013. Such was an agreement signed by Sverdlovsk Region Government and Russian TV & Radio Network (RTRS) at INNOPROM 2011 today. In 2011-2013, over 140 digital TV facilities will be launched in the area. This project requires 1.47bn RUR worth of investments. The money will be directed to system project development, procurement of permissions, constriction of a digital TV broadcasting network, and provision of land, power networks, and engineering infrastructure. As a result, 99% of Sverdlovsk Region’s

SKB-Bank presented four innovational products at the international industrial forum INNOPROM 2011 in Yekaterinburg. The products are aimed at offering the bank’s customers maximum speediness of service and top reliability of transactions. For one, the bank presented its own money order service known as Begom (‘On the run’), which allows one to process a money order online without the need to set up a bank account. The Pay-on-Your-Way system makes it possible for thousands of customers to pay their housing, phone, and Internet bills as well as tuition fees and road police fines in the bank’s

468,700 sq m of housing was commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2011, which was 4% less than in January-June 2010, SverdlovskStat reports. 5,257 apartments have been built this year so far, although the figure was greater by 525 apartments in January-June 2010. The local dwellers had 248,600 sq m of housing built with their own or borrowed money, which is 10.9% more than a year earlier. 53% of the total figure was private houses (against 45.9% in January-June 2010).