Ural Airlines started operating its flights to Simferopol and Blagoveshchensk again on June 2, 2008 due to the beginning of the vacation season. Yekaterinburg-Simferopol-Yekaterinburg flight is available every Monday. The plane leaves Yekaterinburg at 12.45 PM and arrives in Simferopol at 1.20 PM, then takes off in Simferopol at 3 PM and lands in Yekaterinburg at 9.15 PM. The duration of the flight comes to 3 ¼ hours, the airline’s press officer reports. During the summertime, these flights will be offered four times a week. Yekaterinburg-Blagoveshchensk flight is operated every Monday; the

SKB-Bank’s Chairman Mikhail Khodorovskiy was elected Deputy Chairman of the Association of Regional Banks of Russia at the association’s twenty-third general meeting. Alexander Murychev, the association’s Chairman, and Anatoly Aksakov, the association’s President and the State Duma deputy, spoke very highly of this choice. The Association of Regional Banks of Russia is the first all-Russian banking union founded in 1990 and consisting of over four hundred members at the moment, these being some major players of the country’s banking market, western banks’ daughter enterprises, and provincial

A number of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s shareholders sold portions of the shares they had. Ural Avia’s share decreased from 21.71425 % to 19.54177 %; Bank Severnaya Kazna Supervisory Board member Leonid Bratzev reduced his share from .81200 % to .73076 %; Bank Severnaya Kazna BOD member Vladimir Veselov’s share went down from .08294 % to .07464%; Bank Severnaya Kazna Supervisory Board member Roman Vitkovskiy reduced his share from .36036 % to .32431 %; Bank Severnaya Kazna Supervisory Board member and Chairman Andrei Volchik reduced his share from 1.68733 % to 1.51851%; Bank Severnaya Kazna BOD

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Uralfinance to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 74.51% (from 53.95 million RUR to 13.75 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

According to the local public prosecution authorities’ transport department, 726 people were injured at Sverdlovsk Region Railways and South Ural Railways in 2007. This includes 405 fatal accidents. 185 people were injured in the first quarter of 2008, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 17%. ‘One of the reasons for non-industrial injuries is the failure of transport enterprises to take the necessary accident-preventive measures as well as the fact that they often maintain the platforms and the pedestrian crossings and decks very poorly. To make matters worse, guard rails and

One of ChTPZ Complex Pipe Systems’ plants based in Magnitogorsk has been successfully audited by QS Azia Sertik (based in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan) and proved the compliance of its quality management system with the ST RK ISO 9001-2001 standards. The above-mentioned standard has been adopted by the Republic of Kazakhstan as the official state standard and is based on the international ISO 9001:2000 one. ‘The fact that the enterprise’s produce met the Kazakh official standards greatly facilitated the signing of the contract that makes ChTPZ Complex Pipe Systems the supplier of component parts for

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to local governments and Russian Federation subjects’ finance bodies for 91 to 180 days plummeted by 100% (from 14 million RUR to zero) in January-May 2008.

The share of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s BOD Chairman Vladimir Frolov in the company’s authorized capital went down from 25% to 22.49878% of the bank’s ordinary shares. At the same time, East Capital Explorer Financial Institution Fund AB now owns 10.00486% of the bank’s ordinary shares instead of none.

Yekaterinburg-based More Travel was excluded from the United Federal Register of tour operators. The decree to this extent has recently been signed by head of the Federal Tourism Agency (aka Rostourism) V. Strzhalkovskiy.

Ural Treasures Bank has recently offered its customers some new types of deposits. The Universal deposit is valid for 367 days; the customer can withdraw part of the money from their deposit provided the minimum deposit amount is left in the account. Besides, the deposit agreement may be called off earlier (the interest rates will then be determined on the basis of the bank’s early-termination interest rate scale), the bank’s press officer reports. The Savings deposit gives one a chance to plan the deposit period in between 91 and 732 days. The interest rate remains the same throughout the

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank valid for up to 30 days dropped by 64.28% (from 14 million RUR to 5 million RUR) in January-April 2008.

‘I should say that every once in a while, some old-time investment companies actually close down after all. Iset-Invest would not be the only example of this. I would assume that the recent annulment of the license of a professional securities market player has to do with the proprietors’ decision not to go on working in the current fiercely competitive environment. Modestly-sized provincial investment companies find it increasingly difficult to stay on the market, and this market’s opportunities are not the best for the local players (that is, for about a quarter of all investment

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) took part in the 3d conference on corporate web portals and blogs for metallurgical businesses. The event was coordinated by Metallosnabzheniye I Sbyt (the magazine), the Russian Union of Metal Goods Suppliers, and Metal-Expo. The conference was part of the international industrial fairs devoted to metallurgical machinery, technologies, and produce (Metallurgy. Litmash 2008), Russian pipes (Pipes. Russia 2008), and non-ferrous metals (Aluminum/Tsvetmet 2008) held in Moscow on May 27-30, 2008. The 3d conference on corporate web portals and blogs for

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in TagilBank valid for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 64.05% (from 15.3 million RUR to 5.5 million RUR) in January-April 2008.

295,000 square meters of housing were put up in Sverdlovsk Region in January-April 2008, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 23%. In thirty-one cities and districts, the volume of housing was also greater that that registered in January-April 2007. Twenty-six regional municipalities managed to increase their housing construction rate by over 20% against last year’s figures. Yekaterinburg, with its 117,000 square meters of housing (35.6% better than in January-April 2007), tops this list and is followed by Verkhnyaya Pyshma (27,800 square meters of housing – a 44% increase),

‘Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company acquired 50% of Demidov Business Center, but Andrei Kositsin and I agreed that this should not affect the construction process,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference on May 29, 2008. Nevertheless, Demidov representatives complained earlier that UMMC was getting ready for a raider-style hostile takeover. ‘As far as the proprietors’ feuds are concerned, I believe they have to handle this issue without the Governor’s involvement,’ Eduard Rossel noted.

‘We haven’t received any acquisition proposals from DON-stroy, moreover, no company has ever offered to buy our business, so all this talk is no more than gossip,’ General Director of Atomstroycomplex Construction Administration Valeriy Ananiev announced at a press conference. In the meantime, some media report Atomstroycomplex might have been bought by DON-stroy, the Moscow-based developer.

Aston, the local developer, might be unable to complete its Nakhimov Plaza trade and office center at 9 Vainer St before the deadline. According to the company’s Chairman Vyacheslav Trapeznikov, the technical commissioning of the building was originally scheduled for June 2008. However, the outer walls of the building haven’t been quite finished yet, while the interior furnishing only began a very short while ago. Besides, the original deadline for the completion of the building was determined at the fourth quarter of 2007. Aston explains the delay has to do with the limited space of the

SKB-Bank’s financial records for the year 2007 have successfully undergone the international audit procedures. The bank’s chief accountant Oleg Morozov reports KPMG, the company that audited SKB-Bank’s consolidated accounts for 2007 on the basis of international standards, is one of the world’s largest and best-reputed auditors. KPMG’s report states that the bank and its daughter enterprise’s overall asset volume amounted to 29.962 million RUR on December 31, 2007. Their funds reached 3.843 billion RUR, its net profit came to 435 million RUR. SKB-Bank group’s assets and net profit (calculated

Yekaterinburg municipal council coordinated a meeting with the local management companies on the abundance of shopping space in Yekaterinburg. Yekaterinburg Consumer Market Committee reports the city is expected to have 1,500 square meters of trade areas per every one thousand dwellers in 2010. These data were presented by Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev, who said that the city felt a certain shortage of offices and logistics centers at the moment. The meeting participants said they also felt a need for more inexpensive shopping areas and complained the city’s infrastructure was apparently