Finnair Oyj and Czech Airlines called off their flights from Yekaterinburg to Helsinki and Prague, respectively. According to Koltsovo Airport’s announcement board, the first planes were supposed to have left Yekaterinburg at 5:55 AM and 4:30 AM on April 19, 2010.

The losses of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Enterprise reached about 7 billion RUR last year, of which 6 billion RUR was actually the previous years’ accumulated loss, the company’s General Director Oleg Sienko announced at a recent briefing, RIA Novosti reports. ‘All in all, our losses have amounted to something like 7 billion RUR, that is, over 6.5 billion RUR worth of the earlier years’ loses aggravated by our inability to pay off the body of our loans. In fact, we took out our loans rather expensively at the time, and now we have to pay off over 8 billion RUR worth of loans

The steel output of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) went up by 7% in the first quarter of 2010, so the figures reached 2,732,000 tons. In addition, the enterprise’s commodity output rose by 5% and amounted to 2,453,000 tons. Also, the amount of high-value-added goods produced by the company increased by 5%, even though such goods still make up 30% of MMK’s entire product range. ‘MMK keeps building up on the heavy plate production using the Mill 5000. For one, we manufactured 176,000 tons of heavy plate in the first quarter of 2010 alone, which was 35% better than in the last quarter

‘Once Avtoland Holding’s license hasn’t been renewed and the company can no longer represent Land Rover or Jaguar in Yekaterinburg, we have been getting considerably more customers. For one, the number of car owners who need the services of Krasnolesye car center has recently gone up by 1.5 times,’ Krasnolesye’s After-Sales Manager Alexander Koryukin informed UrBC. Koryukin said the earliest appointments with the mechanics dealing with these particular brands were only available in May 2010. ‘After Avtoland Holding had stopped being these brands’ official dealer, some of Land Rover and Jaguar

Finnair’s flights from Yekaterinburg to Helsinki and back were cancelled on Friday because of the ash cloud produced by a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Koltsovo Airport’s announcement board stated that the arrival of flight ERJ-190 in Yekaterinburg that was scheduled for 5.55 AM (3.55 AM Moscow time) and the flight’s departure on 6.50 AM (4.50 AM Moscow time) to Helsinki had been cancelled. The airline explained that the flights were called off because the volcanic eruption in Iceland had made it impossible to fly above Northern Europe. The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano located

The net profit of RTI, the Urals-based rubber goods plant, decreased by 47.492 million RUR, or 721.4% over one quarter. The figures plunged from 6.583 million RUR worth of profit in the third quarter of 2009 to 40.909 million RUR worth of losses in the last quarter of 2009. The plant says this increase in net loss in the last quarter against the previous quarter of 2009 had to do with the way the figures were presented after the tax officials’ inspections in 2006-2007, with the seasonal drop in revenues, and with the increased heating expenses in winter.

The turnover of foreign goods handled by Yekaterinburg Customs in the first quarter of 2010 amounted to $1.6bn. The share of goods exported to or imported from the far abroad comprised 85.5% of the total foreign turnover volume, or $1.3bn. The share of goods delivered to or from the CIS reached 14.2%, or $221.1, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. Imported goods came to 21.6% of the foreign trade turnover volume, or $336.6m, the share of exported goods came to 78.4%, or $1.2bn. The freight turnover reached 829,500 tons in the first quarter of 2010. 62.9% of goods (or

Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) produced 6% less steel in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the last quarter of 2009 and reached 2.8 million tons. The enterprise’s production of finished goods also dropped by 6% and amounted to 2.8 million tons, NLMK stated in its quarterly report for January-March 2010. In addition, NLMK’s cast iron sales shrank by 59.6% in the last quarter of 2009. On the whole, however, the company sold 2.8 million tons of finished goods in the first quarter of 2010, which was 1% than in the last quarter of 2009. Among these goods were 1 million tons of

Sverdlovsk Region intends to meet its obligations towards LUKOIL Oil Company in terms of providing the business with a number of land allotments, Head of the region’s Government Anatoly Gredin announced at his meeting with OOO LUKOIL-Permnefteprodukt’s acting General Director Mikhail Kobylko and the company’s representatives. Sverdlovsk Region and LUKOIL signed a cooperation agreement that stated the oil company would implement a number of socially important projects, while the regional authorities would help the business by offering the company some land allotments for setting up fuel

UralTransBank announced that OOO A-Service’s petition to declare the bank insolvent had no legal grounds. What is more, the bank intends to contest the court’s decision that the organization should pay about 1.4 million RUR worth of unjust enrichment back to A-Service. On April 12, 2010 OOO A-Service placed an application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking to declare OAO UralTransBank bankrupt. ‘We see this application as an attempt of rights abuse,’ the bank’s official press release states. OOO A-Service has already managed to obtain over 1.38 million RUR worth of unjust

The net profit of Yekaterinburg’s oil plant decreased by 95.677 million RUR, or 42.2%, that is, from 226.615 million RUR down to 130.938 million RUR. However, the company does not explain whether this drop occurred over a period of one quarter or one year. The oil plant says their drop in net profit has to do with shrinking sales.

Evraz Group was forced to put off its rail facilities reconstruction program at Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK) last year, Evraz Group President Alexander Frolov said in his interview to Kommersant. ‘Before the start of the recession, we were planning to renovate two of our works – the one in Nizhniy Tagil and the one in Novokuznetsk. Now we have to limit our efforts to the latter. We are to invest about ?300m in Novokuznetsk Iron & Steel Works over the next three years. ?50m have already been spent on advance payments for the machinery this year. As a matter of fact, we

OOO A-Service placed an application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking to declare OAO UralTransBank bankrupt. This news is available from the court’s official reports. According to these reports, A-Service has already managed to obtain over 1.38 million RUR worth of unjust enrichment from the bank. The court states that this money was taken out of the plaintiff’s account by the bank as soon as A-Service had been declared insolvent. A-Service claims UralTransBank had no legitimate grounds for direct debiting. OOO A-Service was declared bankrupt on March 5, 2010 and is now

Alatyr shopping mall’s recreation area was partially closed a few days ago. ‘Our movie theater and the food court are working as usual, and the bowling will resume operating soon. However, we no longer have the former children’s play area known as the Entertainment Galaxy,’ the mall’s managers informed UrBC but refused to provide any explanations. Alatyr was set up in Yekaterinburg at the end of 2009. The mall’s key tenants are Media Markt (the German electronic goods chain store), Carousel hypermarket, and Cinema Park Movie Theater.

X5 Retail Group, the company that runs Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, and Carousel supermarket chains, recently announced that Carousel was about to re-launch its customer loyalty program through offering its Magic Card discount cards for sale. As it happens, Yekaterinburg-based Carousel supermarkets located in Park House and Alatyr malls stopped accepting the regular customer cards in March 2010, despite the fact that the customers had actually paid to get them. At first, the new loyalty scheme will only be available in Moscow and Moscow Region; by the summer of 2010, the scheme will be fully

On June 1, 2010, Ural Airlines will offer its customers a new flight to the South of Russia. This Moscow-Gelendzhik flight is to be operated on a modern and comfortable A 320 aircraft under the following timetable. The plane to Gelendzhik leaves Domodedovo Airport of Moscow at 9:45 AM every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and arrives in Gelendzhik at 11:50 AM. On Sundays, the plane leaves Domodedovo at 2:10 PM and lands in Gelendzhik at 4:10 PM. The plane back to Moscow takes off in Gelendzhik at 1:20 every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and lands in Domodedovo at 3:25 PM. On Sundays, the plane

The net loss of Moscow Bank for Reconstruction and Development rose by 796.197 million RUR, or 998.1%, in the first quarter of 2010. The loss figures increased from 88.65 million RUR in the last quarter of 2009 to 884.847 million RUR in the first quarter of 2010. The bank explains this rise of net loss has to do with the one-time installment of the possible loan loss reserves worth 957 million RUR. The reserves had to be set up in order to back up the bank’s large-scale loans in compliance with the Central Bank of Russia’s Provision No 254-P adopted on March 26, 2004. The Provision states the

The Chairman of the Federal Trade Union of the Russian Air Dispatchers’ Ural division Mikhail Abramov was recently asked to pay a visit to the regional public prosecution authorities’ transportation unit. According to Mr. Abramov, the authorities only wanted to be put into the picture. ‘They asked me to explain what was going on among the air dispatchers at the airport. I told them they wanted to support their colleagues from Rostov-on-Don and so went on strike to show their sympathy for the case,’ he said. The clash between the management and the trade union, which started in March 2010,

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of OAO Alfa-Bank) has been found guilty of an administrative offense recently. Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service declared that the bank must pay a 500,000-ruble fine. According to the Service, the bank failed to comply in due time with the orders issued by the federal executive authorities regarding its stock market activity.

The volume of deposits opened by private, for-profit organizations at Uralfinance Commercial Bank for 91 to 180 days more than halved in February 2010 and thus went down from 30.7 million RUR on February 1, 2010 to 15.02 million RUR on March 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report placed on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website. In addition, the deposits of profit-making organizations opened for 1 to 3 years plunged by 100%; the figures decreased from 1.792 million RUR on February 1, 2010 to 0 RUR on March 1, 2010.