‘Once the opening ceremony of MediaMarkt consumer electronics chain store has failed so spectacularly after an aggressive advertising campaign and with the opening time scheduled for midnight, the brand owners are bound to sustain considerable reputation losses,’ Project Manager of Onegin Advertising Group Alyona Andropova said to UrBC. The night-time opening ceremony of MediaMarkt failed in Alatyr Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. Despite all the claims made by the opening coordinators, the store never started working at 12 AM on December 10, 2009. TEN-Development Management Company has

Former Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel is going to represent Sverdlovsk Region’s executive body in the Soviet of the Federation. The decision to this extent was taken in the joint meeting of the region’s Legislative Assembly’s both chambers on December 10, 2009. The proposal won twenty-three votes of Sverdlovsk Region Duma deputies (with three deputies absent) and eighteen votes at the House of Representatives (which was a unanimous vote). Prior to Eduard Rossel, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region was represented in the Soviet of the Federation by Alexander Shkolnik.

The director of Sverdlovsk Region-based Beloyarskaya nuclear power station Nikolai Oshkanov is leaving soon. According to the spokesperson for the station, Oshkanov, who has been employed as the station director for seven years, has reached retirement age. The executive’s resignation has been coordinated with the management of Rosenergoatom. The station’s PR department says Oshkanov’s performance has been quite satisfactory. The new head might be appointed during Rosenergoatom’s GD Sergey Obozov’s visit to Yekaterinburg before the end of this week.

The technical opening of Alatyr Trade and Entertainment Center has already taken place in Yekaterinburg. The only shop that is currently operating there is Media Markt, the German consumer electronics chain store. The better part of the center’s six-storey premises is still being finished, with future boutiques’ cubicles covered in banners. What’s more, the temperature in the building is quite low everywhere except MediaMarkt. ‘We are currently doing all the repair and finishing jobs and hope our tenants will have completed everything by January or February 2010. This is when we are planning

The night-time opening ceremony of MediaMarkt, the German consumer electronics chain store, failed in Alatyr Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. Despite all the claims made by the opening coordinators, the store never started working at 12 AM on December 10, 2009. The official reason for this failure is declared to be ‘technological problems’. At any rate, this is exactly what the shopping center managers and security staff said. They had to communicate with the potential customers, who had arrived at the mall at midnight. A lot of them were lured in by MediaMarkt adverts that promised

The profits of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) amounted to $4.32bn in January-September 2009; this figure was 55% lower than that for January-September 2008, the company’s consolidated financial report for the three quarters of 2009 states. NLMK’s gross profit plunged by 73% down to $1.3bn, while its operating profit decreased by 86% and came to $545m. The money flow shrank by 34%. At the same time, the company’s net debt rose by 29% and reached $761m. The enterprise’s EBITDA came to $917m in January-September 2009, which was 77% less than in the nine months of 2008. The EBITDA

Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state technological, nuclear, and environmental safety watchdog) carried out a number of scheduled inspections of Ural Chemical Agents Plant based in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. Eight violations of the law were detected in the course of the inspection, so the inspecting officials issued seven orders, drew up administrative offense protocols, and imposed several administrative fines on the offender, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rospotrebnadzor reports. In addition to this, five violations were revealed at Irgina health

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation intends to contest the court’s ruling regarding the case of TNK-BP Holding. The oil company was accused of violating the competition protection laws but was later acquitted by the court due to a number of legal precedents that had been favorable for the oil companies. Tyumen Region Arbitration Court agreed with TNK-BP that the FAS’s orders had been illegal and also declared the administrative fine imposed on the company for abuse of its dominant position on the oil wholesale market illegitimate. The Federal Antimonopoly Service,

Former First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and Minister for Industry and Science Anatoly Gredin has recently been appointed Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government. The new Head is fifty-three years old. He graduated from Ural Electromechanical Institute of Railway Engineers in 1978 with a degree in Transport Routes Engineering & Railway Maintenance. Anatoly Gredin started working at Sverdlovsk Region Railways in 1978 as Ugleuralskaya station duty officer and was then promoted to switching dispatcher, chief engineer, head of Chusovskaya station, department director of

The current PR Director of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) Alexei Sotskov might become the spokesperson for Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin. However, the news has not been officially confirmed yet. Alexei Sotskov was born in 1979. He graduated from the Department of Journalism of Ural State University and worked at Regional Television. After moving to Moscow, he held positions in Mechel and TMK.

‘The Russian banking business grows 1.5 times more rapidly in the provinces than it does in Moscow. In the Urals, for example, our business development rate is 2.4 times faster than the bank’s average. In Yekaterinburg, the growth rate is actually 3.6 times faster than the bank’s average. In fact, our Yekaterinburg segment is responsible for nearly a half of Bank VTB 24 deposit portfolio in Sverdlovsk Region. This segment’s share of the regional deposit portfolio has gone up by one-third since the recession began,’ Deputy President and Deputy Chairman of Bank VTB 24 Supervisory Board

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) introduced some fines for its business customers. The first fines were actually launched as early as October 2009 but it was only after they got their bank statements that the customers found out that the cost of account maintenance and account transactions had increased considerably. According to the bank’s official website news, the maintenance of type B account (which means the customer must bring paper copies of all the payment documents to the bank) now costs 10,000 RUR for all companies that use the bank’s services. The price holds as long

The employees of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) offered to donate blood for the victims of a major fire accident in Perm-based Lame Horse Club. The municipal health authorities and MMK also declared that they were ready to send their combustion experts to Perm if this should be necessary. The fire broke out in Lame Horse Club in Kuibyshev St at about 1 AM last Saturday when the club was holding its 8th-year anniversary party. Out of the 500-square-meter building, 400 sq m burned down to ashes. According to the preliminarily available data, some fireworks exploded during a

‘Giving Enel OGK-5 a new head would be the right thing to do. I’d say the company might have considered dismissing Anatoly Kopsov at least partly because of his plans to introduce a dry ash handling system at Reftinskaya state district power plant,’ says Chairman of the International Socio-Environmental Union’s Sverdlovsk Region division Vladimir Terekhov. In the meantime, RBC Daily reports the current head of Enel OGK-5 Anatoly Kopsov might really resign soon. ‘Following all the environmentalists’ protests and the scandal around the introduction of the dry ash handling system, the power

Expert-Ural’s analysts came up with their monthly rating of Yekaterinburg-based banks. The rating is based on the local banks’ performance as of November 1, 2009. According to this rating, Koltso Urala Commercial Bank was given the 8th position rather than the 9th position it was given on October 1, 2009. The bank’s improved development indicators also helped the company improve its position in the national bank rating, the spokesperson for Koltso Urala says. ‘Koltso Urala intends to develop and grow rapidly. Our main challenge for the coming year is to be at the top of Sverdlovsk Region’s

Evgeniy Chudnovskiy was appointed General Director of Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. The decision to this extent was made in the course of an extraordinary general meeting on December 4, 2009. Chudnovskiy won 52% of votes among all of those who attended the meeting to settle this issue. According to the shareholders’ decision, the newly appointed GD is going to remain in office for three years. The airport’s former General Director Kirill Shubin resigned in November 2009 to become the Director of Sverdlovsk Region State Order Department. Evgeniy Chudnovskiy was born in Moscow on May 25,

The General Director of Enel OGK-5 Anatoly Kopsov might soon resign and be succeeded by RAO UES of Russia’s former Strategic Director and former head of Rosenergo Dmitriy Akhanov, RBC Daily reports. The company explained to the newspaper that Kopsov’s contract was valid through April 30, 2010. This was the only comment provided by Enel on this issue. Among its various assets, Enel OGK-5 comprises Reftinskaya and Sredneuralskaya state district power plants, both of which are based in Sverdlovsk Region. ‘The former head of Mosenergo Anatoly Kopsov was on good terms with Eduard Rossel,

‘The opening of KomsoMALL Trade & Entertainment Center has been scheduled for the last quarter of 2010. The dates have been set several times, so the final one had to provide a substation time reserve just in case,’ Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva said to UrBC. PRIZMA Trade & Entertainment Center will also get opened in the fourth quarter of 2010. Both malls were in fact supposed to have been opened in 2009, but their investors’ financial troubles made the timely implementation of the project very difficult.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) signed a five-year agreement with Anzherskaya, Koksovaya, Ziminka, and Krasnogorskaya processing plants for the delivery of sinter coal to MMK. MMK PR Department reports the agreement is valid for 2010-2014 and provides for the annual delivery of up to 3.5 million tons of high quality sinter coal concentrate to the enterprise. ‘This agreement means we have our coke and by-product process facilities’ sinter coal needs fully covered. The guaranteed supply of good quality sinter coal will make it possible for MMK to keep implementing its economic

The recent meeting of Chelyabinsk Region recession-fighting committee was devoted to the problems of Katav-Ivanovskiy Mechanical Plant and to the measures taken to improve the financial and economic situation and to protect the workers’ rights. The company’s General Director Yuri Kozhevnikov said the plant’s orders had shrunk considerably against the ante-recession level as early as the fall of 2008. Their storehouses had over 100 million RUR worth of produce. However, the plant found itself unable to attract new orders due to lack of operating assets, as all the cash was directed to paying