Renova-StroyGroup Akademicheskoye’s technical solutions committee considered a number of innovational solutions on energy-saving and green technologies recently. Among the solutions are the new boiler house making technologies that make it possible to manufacture a boiler with the capacity of 200 gigacalories an hour, which output can be extended to 500 gigacalories an hour. The boiler will be put up in Amundsen St to ensure heating for both Academic district and the other areas in the south-west of Yekaterinburg. The new technologies are expected to raise the boiler house productivity by 15%

The construction of Ural Federal University will begin in Yekaterinburg in 2012, the city council’s press service reports. ‘All our efforts are now focused around making sure we get the land allotments registered on which to put up Ural Federal University and a technological park. These are mainly the allotments within the forestry funds, with some of them belonging to the municipality and some of them belonging to Sverdlovsk Region – that’s a section of Shartash forest. However, most of the allotments are owned by the state, that is, 274 hectares of land,’ says the head of the City Council

Standard & Poor's placed BBB long-term contractor credit ratings of OAO Bank VTB and its daughter enterprise OAO VTB-Leasing on its CreditWatch list, with Negative outlook. At the same time, the two companies’ ruAAA national scale ratings were placed on CreditWatch (with Negative rating outlook) as well. ‘Placing the ratings on CreditWatch reflects the possibility of a strong negative impact that the recent acquisition of Bank of Moscow (no S&P rating) can make on them: the money spent can affect VTB’s capital performance, all risks considered, and the quality of the newly bought

OAO Russian Aluminium bought a 100% shareholding in SUAL. At the same time, it was also reported that Alu Process Holding Limited is no longer the shareholder of this Kamensk-Uralsky-based company.

The international rating agency placed the long-term contractor rating of OAO Bank VTB and its enterprises VTB-Leasing and VTB-Leasing Finance on the Negative rating watch on March 1, 2011, RIA Novosti reports. These ratings are now at BBB. ‘Placing [the ratings – editor’s note] on the rating watch, with possible demotion, reflects the probable strong negative impact on Bank VTB’s capital of the risks associated with the recent acquisition of Bank of Moscow,’ the agency explains.

The renewal of Pegas-Touristik’s chartered flights to Egypt was cancelled recently. The tour operator’s earlier decision was greeted with strong resentment on the part of Rostourism. The company reports that the flights that were supposed to have been operated from Moscow to Hurghada and from Moscow to Sharm El Sheikh cannot actually be operated for reasons beyond the tour operator’s control. Pegas promises to give the tourists their money back in full. All in all, about six hundred people had meant to fly to Egypt. Head of Rostourism press service Oleg Moseyev told Echo Mosckvy (a radio

According to the recent preliminary estimates, Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises produced about 172,889,600 tons of waste last year, while the amount of recycled waste came to 71,444,500 tons, the report on the region’s environmental status in 2010 says. The company that was responsible for most of the waste was OAO Vanadium Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise. In 2010, the company produced 45,974,000 tons of waste and recycled 6,485,600 tons. Ural Asbestos Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise, with its 36,401,000 tons of manufactured waste and 17,961,700 tons of recycled waste,

The management of Bank Société Générale Vostok’s Yekaterinburg branch explained the nature of its difficulties with one of its customers, OAO Pnevmostroymachine. The bank admits that if creditors take the business apart, a whole range of industries will go under, but the bank is not prepared at this point to stop claiming the debt. We have obligations not only towards our borrowers, but towards our stockholders as well, which means we have to find a mutually acceptable solution. However, we cannot just make a present of the money we once lent. We are willing to negotiate. We do not prevent

The company’s existing environmental program provided for thirty-five ‘green’ measures targeted at reducing and preventing the company’s environmental impact. Ten more measures will be carried onto this year. Among the company’s most important environmental efforts are the construction of the new close cycle water supply system; a unit of cleaning facilities at CC machine 6 and out-of-furnace steel treatment unit; the construction of a gas purification and a gas exhaust tract at CC machine 6; the reclamation of a slime pit of the company’s ore mining and processing unit; the construction of

Starting March 1, 2011, Ural Airlines is going to celebrate the arrival of spring with a special offer on tickets for flights departing from Moscow. Tickets with a 20% discount are available from March 1, 2011 to March 15, 2011. The special prices are offered on the following domestic flights: Moscow-Irkutsk (5,900 RUR), Moscow-Novosibirsk (4,900 RUR), Moscow-Novokuznetsk (7,000 RUR), Moscow-Chita (12,000 RUR), Moscow-Yekaterinburg (3,500 RUR). These are the prices used in the booking offices. If you book online, the airline’s website www.uralairlines.com features special online rates. The

Bank Société Générale Vostok’s Yekaterinburg branch has been issuing increasingly fewer loans to businesses over the last two years. The total loan output, as far as large and medium enterprises are concerned, declined from 6.8bn RUR in 2008 down to 3.4bn RUR in 2010. The bank explains its main efforts were focused on bad debts, while the actual loan issuance process only began in the second half of 2010, after the annual report for 2009 had been published. ‘Last year was mainly the one of debt amortization. We had to set our problem assets straight. Some of our borrowers are still giving us

The arrival of a SkyExpress airplane to Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg was called off today. Flight EX303 was supposed to have arrived from Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport at 8:30 PM today. The arrival was actually cancelled. No reason or explanation has been given on the airport’s interactive announcement board. This means the return flight EX304 (original departure time 9:45 PM) was called off as well.

A criminal suit might follow the recent tug crushing into Lufthansa-owned airplane in Perm airport, Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation report. While Airbus A321-200 was getting ready to take off in Perm’s Bolshoye Savino Airport on February 26, 2011, a tug crushed into it, damaging the metallic fixtures that attached the tug to the plane. There were forty-three passengers and seven crew members aboard the plane. An investigative team and Perm’s public prosecutor for transportation Sergey Zabelov inspected the scene of the accident shortly afterwards. It was revealed that

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service approved of handing a big holding of OAO Polymetall’s shares over to a newly created foreign holding. The holding is supposed to get its shares listed at London Stock Exchange in the future, Polymetall’s press service reports. Polymetall deals in geological survey work in four Russian provinces: Magadan and Sverdlovsk Regions, Khabarovsk Territory and Chukotka, as well as in Kazakhstan. As for Sverdlovsk Region, gold-mining enterprises operate in Krasnoturinsk, at Vorontsovskoye gold mine.

In order to extend its destinations network even further and to meet its customers’ demands, Ural Airlines is to offer more Yekaterinburg-Rome flights starting March 23, 2011. The destination proved quite popular last year (the total passenger traffic for Yekaterinburg-Rome and Rome-Yekaterinburg flights came to 5,995 people in 2010), with the demand increasing by the hour. So, one can now fly to Rome twice a week, any Sunday or Wednesday. More flights to Italy’s capital became possible thanks to the company’s long-term fleet upgrade program – Ural Airlines will get four new Airbus planes

Customers have been placing increasingly more complaints about food prices and price tags accuracy at such Yekaterinburg-based food chains as Kupets, Monetka, Picnic, Perekrestok, Kirovsky, and Megamart with Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog), the division’s press officer reports. Following the inspections by the division’s officials, the executives responsible for the violation of consumers’ rights had to face administrative prosecution, while the heads of the enterprises were ordered to remove the violations.

Very few of our buildings that are put up in some densely populated environment escape some sort of sabotage by the locals. Sadly, this is a very common thing to happen. We understand that a construction site nearby is not the most pleasant thing in the world, and it obviously touches upon the interests of everyone around,’ Valery Ananyev, the General Director of Atomstroycomplex, one of Yekaterinburg’s leading developers, said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The same kind of thing always happens: broken headlights, smashed machinery, workers who get beaten. The developers are losing

Head of Yekaterinburg Evgeniy Porunov and Head of Yekaterinburg City Council Alexander Yakob met Vietnam’s Consul General Le Quy Quynh, Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma’s press service reports. The consul is about to resign from his office in Yekaterinburg after about three and a half years. While he was in office, Hanoi Shopping Center was opened in the city and a scheduled Yekaterinburg-Hanoi flight was introduced. What is more, much more citizens of Vietnam now live and work in Yekaterinburg as expats. Evgeniy Porunov and Alexander Yakob thanked the consul for his efforts and said he made a

The representatives of the world-famous Japanese Mitsui Corporation arrived at Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group) on a business visit in order to look at the plant’s facilities and hold talks about the two parties’ prospective cooperation. The Japanese delegates visited the company’s finishing center and Iron Ozone 32, a steel-smelting facility, as well as a few tube-rolling departments. The representatives of Japan’s oldest trading firm looked into the process of pipe manufacturing, from making ingots at Iron Ozone 32 to producing half-finished articles at the tube-rolling department

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service annulled Zapsibcombank’s license allowing the company to handle stock exchange orders. The decision was taken after the bank had submitted its application to this extent and provided proof of having no unmet professional obligations.