OAO Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for January and February 2011. The company operated 2,695 flights in the two months of the year, which was 42% more than in the two months of 2010. For one, the airline operated 594 international flights (which exceeded the figures for 2010 by 41%), 1538 domestic flights (which exceeded the figures for 2010 by 37%), and 538 flights within the CIS (which exceeded the figures for 2010 by 59%). In February 2010, Ural Airlines operated 1,159 flights altogether, which was 37% better than in February 2010. These results were made possible due to

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won in the All-Russian contest Russia’s Best Enterprises. Dynamics, Efficiency, Responsibility 2010 in the Environmentally Responsible Enterprise category. The contest was coordinated by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. ‘MMK is involved in a large-scale investment program and is currently switching to new technological processes that provide for nature-friendly, conservationist facilities based on the most advanced technologies available at the moment. At the same time, we are doing away with the obsolete equipment as well,’ says

Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Board of Directors Viktor Rashnikov met the reporters from the world’s leading media such as Reuters», «Nikkei», «Steel Business Briefing», «Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung», «Steel Times International», «Platts», and some other press organs today. According to MMK PR Deparment, the commentators grew interested in Russia’s leading metallurgical company because of its large-scale upgrades program that brought the enterprise to a new technological height. MMK now manufactures more high value-added produce than any other Russian metallurgical

Forbes magazine’s experts came up with a rating of Russian banks’ dependability. ‘When choosing a bank, people still care most about its reliability. To make it easier for you to choose a bank, we broke the country’s top one hundred organizations into reliability groups depending on the evaluations provided by Fitch, Moody's, and S&P,’ the analysts explain. Forbes thus announced that OAO SKB-Bank is the most dependable bank in the Urals; it’s also Russia’s 44th largest and the Urals’ largest bank in terms of asset volume. Its assets, in fact, reach over 84.1bn RUR; SKB-Bank has also

OAO Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant sold 1,485,000 tons of steel pipes in 2010 against only 1,131,000 pipes a year earlier. The company’s output went up mainly due to the launch of the new Vysota 239 department that services the needs of Gazprom; the department started manufacturing goods in the second half of 2010 and produced 5,000 tons and 61,000 tons of goods in the third and fourth quarters of 2010, respectively. The plant kept on making pipes for Russia’s key pipelines, including VSTO-2, BTS-2, and Purpe-Samotlor. The company sold 202,000 tons of large-diameter pipes to customers in the

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service started looking into the causes of railway carriages becoming twice as expensive last year compared with the earlier price. This means a number of carriage manufacturers will be inspected to see if they actually take unfair advantage of their dominant market position. The inspections might involve Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation, Kommersant reports. The intention to investigate the drastic price increase in 2010 and 2011 was first voiced by Deputy Transport Minister Andrei Nedosekov. He said the government had asked the Transport

OAO NOMOS-Bank’s Board of Directors suggested that the company’s stockholders vote for passing the dividends on preferred registered stock as well as the dividends on common registered stock for the year 2010 at the upcoming AGM. The annual general meeting has been scheduled for April 18, 2011. The other points on the agenda cover issues related to the annual report approval and profit distribution as well as appointing the supervisory board and the audit commission members.

Urals Energy Sector Engineering Center (comprising UralVNIPIenergoprom, Uralselenergoproyekt, UralTEP, UralORGRES, UralVTI, Uralenergosetproyekt, and Chelyabenergosetproyekt) became a stockholder of ITsEU KZ, a limited liability company. The Center bought a 100% shareholding in the business.

World-class mathematicians and computer programmers will be the product of Ural Federal University’s department of Mathematics & Mechanics that is soon to be converted into Math & Computer Science Institute. The project on converting the department has already been approved at the university’s Development Program Directorate. In addition to the department of Mathematics & Mechanics, the new institute will also comprise a number of research laboratories and scientific education centers as well as the regional scientific learning center for information security and a specialized

Baltika, the beer brewing company and a member of Carlsberg Group, made some changes in the terms of its promotional offer that provided for a trip to Japan for the first prize winner. The decision to change the terms was made because of the tragic events in Japan happening at the moment, the company’s press service reports. ‘According to our earlier plans, a special campaign dubbed Baltika No. 7 – Now in Japan; Win a Trip to Tokyo was to have started on April 1, 2011. The idea for the campaign was elaborated in the fall of 2010, the special promotional beer packaging production began in

All the work related to the elaboration of the Titanium Valley Project and to the completion of a development plan for this special economic zone will probably be finished in May 2011, Deputy Economics Minister of Sverdlovsk Region Viktor Dolzhenko announced at a recent meeting dedicated to the project. The original decree to set up a special economic zone in Verkhyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region was enacted by the Russian Government in December 2010. The project’s budget (totaling to over 50bn RUR) has by now been agreed upon; the lion’s share of the money – 40bn RUR – is to be provided by the

Raghav Jugendra Singh bought a 6.1% shareholding in OAO Uralredmet, the company reports, whereas OOO Claris & Co that used to own an equal share is no longer the company’s stockholder. The company last underwent a change of stockholders in November 2010 when LAOAG Technical & Metallurgical Services Limited acquired a 15.78% shareholding in the business. The company reported then that the holding was bought from Raghav Jugendra Singh, who, in his turn, bought it from Gobest International Limited at the end of October 2010. OAO Uralredmet makes vanadium alloys and vanadium bullions for

A gas filling station at 5 Krasnoarmeyskaya St. in Yekaterinburg will have to be pulled down to make room for the Radisson Hotel. The station owner OAO Gazpromneft-Ural told UrBC that the city council is already planning to give up on its proprietor’s rights. ‘We are currently looking for some better compensation offers,’ the company explained. Radisson SAS is to be built in Yekaterinburg at the intersection of Malyshev St and Krasnoarmeyskaya St. The high-rise building will be put up by Atomstroycomplex, who have already announced they are prepared to complete the project by the end of 2013.

The net profit of OAO Gazpromneft-Ural declined by 43.13m RUR, or 14% in the last quarter of 2010, that is, from 308.2m RUR in the third quarter to 265.06m RUR in the fourth quarter of the year. The company explains the drop in profits has to do with the growing purchase prices.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is now looking into the claim laid by Uralmashzavod’s minority stockholders Lev Elkonin and Lyudmila Mamontova against the company. The plaintiffs disagree with decision to raise the company’s authorized capital by launching an additional share issue. The decision was taken at the last annual general meeting. The preliminary court hearing was scheduled for today.

Russia and Turkey are about to lift all the visa requirements for one another. Following the negotiations between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan in the Kremlin, the two countries exchanged notes to the extent that the new readmission and travel terms for Russian and Turkish citizens come into full force, Vesti reports. The new rules are expected to be enacted as soon as May 2011.

Kommersant reports head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Vladimir Suprun is about to resign. According to the newspaper’s source, the executive has been promoted to a new position in Moscow: he is to get a top post either in the Russian Transport Ministry or in the Russian Railways Public Company. Sverdlovsk Region Railways has not provided any comments so far. Kommersant believes Suprun is most likely to be succeeded by his first deputy Valery Fomin or the company’s chief engineer Igor Naboichenko. Vladimir Suprun has been running the line since 2007.

The terminals used by one of Russia’s major payments systems are infected with Trojan.PWS.OSMP virus, Prime TASS refers to Doctor Web (a security software developer)’s press service as claiming. The virus interferes with the performance of the legal maratl.exe that is used in the terminals OS and replaces the actual account number the user intends to transfer money to with another account number, which results in the money becoming available to fraudsters. Experts interviewed by the agency report the Trojan was detected in Qiwi terminals; the company itself admitted the problem did exist.

West-Siberian Federal District Arbitration Court supported the ruling of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service Tyumen Region division that Yugoria, an insurance company, had violated the existing antimonopoly legislation, the division’s press service reports. ‘The court stated that prosecuting Yugoria and making it face administrative liability for violating the Competition Protection Law (namely, for signing an agency agreement that did not agree with the fair competition principles) was fully justified,’ the agency reports. Now the Federal Antimonopoly Service Tyumen Region division also

The situation in Egypt is no longer so dangerous as to preclude tourist trips there. In my opinion, the fact the ban on traveling there still hasn’t been lifted can be seen as a violation of citizens’ rights to freedom of movement,’ says the Director of Zima-Leto Group Olga Gulyar. ‘In fact, the state of events is quite alarming. The thing is, Egypt is No. 1 sales product for both the travel agents and the tour operators. These tours amounted to about 70% of all their sales in February and March. Now, however, it turns out companies have almost nothing to sell: trips to places like Thailand,