UrBC, Moscow, April 11, 2019. 8.86 million people flew with Russian air carriers in March 2019; this exceeds the figures for one year earlier by 13%. According to Rosaviation, passenger traffic rose most noticeably with Pobeda Airlines with its 726,400 passengers (+47.4%). Nearly 3 million flew with Aeroflot (+13.8%), 908,200 people flew with S7 (+13.6%). 711,300 people flew with Rossiya (+9.1%), and 662,500 people flew with Ural Airlines (+8.8%) last month. The Russian air carriers’ overall passenger turnover thus reached 23.16 billion passenger-kilometers. As for the earlier months, the

UrBC, Moscow, April 11, 2019. Russia’s Economic Development Ministry brought its forecast for the expected increase in people’s actual pay in 2019 from 1.4% down to 1.1%. Respective adjustments have been made to the country’s socioeconomic development scenario for 2019-2024 (available on the ministry’s website). According to the ministry’s report, the scenario in question will be used as a roadmap for setting the federal budget parameters for the year 2019; the final medium-term forecast will get presented in August. Based on the current forecast, Russians’ factual wages and salaries will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 10, 2019. Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy’s developer RSG-Akademicheskoye is looking for a contractor to design the embankment along the River Patrushikha in the district, the company’s press service reports. The contractor who gets selected in the course of the tender will have to do all the engineering survey work and produce the initial design of and project documentation for the embankment along the River Patrushikha in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy (Quarter 26). All the project-related jobs should get done between June 2019 and January 2020.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 10, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) was once again featured at the top of the rating of banks with best settlement service terms for businesses operating in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Markswebb’s research findings for the first quarter of the year indicate. ‘The UBRD’s Business Class 12 Package proved to be the best offer on the market. The annual fee covers unlimited payment-to-contractor transactions and employee salary payments, 16% commission on acquiring services, mobile banking, and text message notifications on every change

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 10, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) reports its long-term IDR got brought from BBB- to BBB by Fitch Ratings on April 8, 2019, with Stable rating outlook. ‘The agency’s press release says the rating improvement is meant to stress the company’s ability to maintain a conservative financial profile despite the market turbulence (thanks to low production costs, a focus on high value-added produce, the leading position on the Russian steel market, and impressive profit margins throughout the entire economic cycle),’ MMK’s Information & PR Department

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 10, 2019. Easter Days, a new play based on Ivan Shmelev’s Summer of the Lord, is now being worked on in Ozersk. The play is part of Rostok Charity Project and is scheduled to premiere on April 28 (Orthodox Easter 2019). According to the ChelPipe Group’s press service, the cast includes sixteen young locals who got selected through audition rounds at the drama theater. The play is part of ChelPipe Group’s and Ozersk Council’s culture/education cooperation agreement. In addition to this performance, the Group will also sponsor a series of large-scale local events

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, April 10, 2019. ChelPipe Group and Gazprom Kyrgyzstan signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, the Group’s press service reports. The agreement was signed by ChelPipe Group’s CFO Denis Prikhodko and Gazprom Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Director-General for Production Issues Alexander Grebenyuk. The two parties agreed to share their technical data and hold regular meet ups in order to improve their pipe produce. The paper also dwells on the fact that the primary goal behind this scientific and technological cooperation is to reduce the environmental impact of gas

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 9, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) sponsored the annual local IT contest for schoolchildren this year as usual, MMK’s press service reports. The awarding ceremony for finalists and contest participants took place at S. Ordzhonikidze Culture Palace; Director of Personal Human Resource Training Center Andrei Kozlovsky, MMK’s leading HR expert Konstantin Klinov, and head of Metallurg Charity Foundation’s Children’s Department Nadezhda Likhova all thanked the contestants for their input and wished them every success. The IT contest is open to students of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 9, 2019. EVRAZ Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ NTMK) Central Electrotechnical Lab got set up sixty years ago this month, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Relations Center reports. A solemn ceremony took place at Metallurgists’ Palace, with the lab’s leading professionals and old-service employees all attending. Fourteen of the lab’s employees received company’s honorary certificates and thank-you letters from Sverdlovsk Region’s Legislative Assembly. The lab got launched in 1959 by order of EVRAZ NTMK’s first Director A.F. Zakharov. The lab was then in charge

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 9, 2019. ChelPipe Group signed a contract to ship more than 150,000,000 kg of large-diameter pipes to the state-owned company TurkmenGaz for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Pipeline, the Group’s press service reports. Under the terms of the contract, around 200 km of TAPI Pipeline in Turkmenistan will be made from ChelPipe Group’s pipes. The first shipment of LDPs (diameter: 1,420 mm; steel grade: X70) with corrosion-resistant outer coating will take place in the second quarter of 2019. ‘ChelPipe Group keeps working to expand its export markets;

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 9, 2019. A new MegaFon Ural customer signs up for the company’s cashback options every minute, MegaFon states after looking into the sign-up statistics on its new series of all-inclusive packages (20% of money spent on telecom services gets paid back into the user’s account), the company’s press service reports. ‘According to MegaFon’s data, nearly 50,000 of our customers are already using our cashback options. Every one in five rubles you spend on telecom services either at home or abroad can go back to your user account. The money can get used to (partially or

UrBC, Moscow, April 9, 2019. Most Russians are going to stay home or go to their dachas during the upcoming May break; only 14% of the people who took part in the recent survey intend to travel, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center reports. Two-thirds (63%) of those surveyed are planning on staying at home; the percentage comes to as much as 72% for those living in the country’s rural areas, whereas in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other big cities (1,000,000+ people), the percentage comes to 47% and 52%, respectively. Another third (35%) of respondents will go to their dachas (the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 8, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps directing funds to Viktor F. Rashnikov’s charity project Magnitogorsk’s Gifted Children. MMK’s Director-General Pavel Shilyayev signed a list of candidates who get on the program this year, the company’s press service reports. Last year, a series of school contests across a range of subjects got coordinated in Magnitogorsk. The winners, as well as the young students who won in city-wide, regional, and national competitions (forty-three people all in all), all got long-listed for Viktor Rashnikov’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s Marketing Director Alexei Merzlyakov won the Best Marketing Expert award in the National Business Communication Prize contest; the solemn awarding ceremony took place in Moscow on April 4. According to the bank’s press service, Merzlyakov won bronze in the Finance Sector. He is now also on the list of Russia’s best marketing experts that features acknowledged marketing leaders and the industry’s strongest experts with a great personal contribution to their companies’ development and outstanding business

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2019. The Urals’ first birchbark crafts museum opened in Nizhniy Tagil with EVRAZ Holding’s support. The idea for the museum was first put forth by EVRAZ Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ NTMK)’s employee Sergey Korotchene, who has been making different things using birchbark for many years now. According to the company’s press service, the museum was fitted out with the grant money from EVRAZ: City of Friends - City of Ideas Project; the venue was provided by Nizhniy Tagil division of Russia’s Artists’ Union. The museum now features an exhibition of Sergey

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2019. Yekaterinburg Customs officers and police officers from Yekaterinburg division of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Department confiscated a wholesale-sized batch of pirated car parts in Yekaterinburg, Ural Customs’ press service reports. The officers inspected a store and a warehouse in the city’s District Ordzhonikidzevsky and confiscated over a thousand car parts bearing logos of well-established Japanese brands. The business owner was unable to produce any proof of customs clearance or of the goods’ origin,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 8, 2019. The administrative claim placed by Spetsavtobaza, Sverdlovsk Region’s waste-recycling operator, against Sverdlovsk Region’s Regional Economic Committee got dismissed by the court. Spetsavtobaza had demanded an increase in the price of garbage disposal and trash pick-up for end users, Sverdlovsk Region Court’s press service reports. The plaintiff insisted the committee charged very low prices that did not make up for the office equipment and software expenses. Spetsavtobaza also claimed it was wrong not to include the services of workers dealing with

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 5, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won several medals and certificates at Archimedes, the 22nd Moscow International Salon of Inventions and Innovative Technologies, at the end of March, the company’s press service reports. The salon’s board of experts and the international judges’ panel awarded MMK and Prometey Central Scientific Research Institute Of Structural Materials a gold medal and a certificate for their joint development, highly durable, cold-resistant steel. The two parties’ other projects, on production methods for cold-resistant steel

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2019. Ural Airlines are introducing extra Yekaterinburg-Prague-Yekaterinburg flights during the upcoming May break. There will be four extra flights in addition to the existing six flights a week. These flexible departure options mean you can plan a very convenient stay or a beautiful weekend in Prague, the air carrier’s press service reports. The extra flights will get operated on April 27, April 30, May 4, and May 11, 2019. Flight U6 713 (Yekaterinburg-Prague), Departure: 2:30 PM, Arrival: 4:05 PM. Flight U6 714 (Prague-Yekaterinburg), Departure: 5:05 PM,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 5, 2019. EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya-Koksovaya Mine adopted a new coal-extracting technology, the holding’s press service reports. The company’s miners switched from the chamber-and-pillar method to the coal face technology, which is expected to boost the mine’s production output by 2.5 times. The first jobs in preparation for the coal face launch began as early as last February. The miners went through the project documentation, set up a new mining section, and did 6 km worth of excavation work. Long-Face 3-2-1 (bis) has 886,000,000 kg in estimated reserves of