The officers of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service started accepting the regional dwellers’ applications for the new generation international passports in March 2008. Their office was fitted with four booths meant for taking photographs of applicants and accepting and processing their application forms. Only 206 people applied for these new passports in March 2008, yet the figure has soared to 2,027 people by now, and the number of applicants keeps growing. For the time being, the new passports can only be obtained at the Service’s Yekaterinburg headquarters at 2

UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics has recently received a letter from Aston, the local developer. The letter appears to be a response to the news regarding the company the agency made available online. The letter says: ‘Dear Sirs, Thank you for the attention you’ve been paying to one of our projects, Aston Plaza, located at the intersection of Gurzufskaya and Radischev St. in Yekaterinburg. Let us point out, however, that the news regarding the public prosecution authorities’ demand that the construction process should be stopped was presented in a rather one-sided

Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works’ Board of Directors suggested that the works’ only shareholder should pay the dividends for the first quarter of 2008. The figure comes to 4.45 billion RUR and is to be paid in rubles or U.S. dollars (upon the shareholder’s written request) in accordance with the Central Bank of Russia’s exchange rate.

Moscow, 22 May 2008 – UC RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, is pleased to announce the investment of around USD 50 million into the expansion of cast-house production at Irkutsk Aluminium Smelter. The expansion is required due to the previous introduction of two new potrooms, which increased production capacity of the smelter by 170,000 tonnes of aluminium per annum. The new cast-house workshop will be put into full operation at the end of 2008. The cast-house workshop will have two new cast-house complexes. Each will contain a Remetal (Spain) cast-house conveyor and

It appears that the apartments in Aston Plaza, located in Radischev and Gurzufskaya St. in Yekaterinburg, do not enjoy great demand. Aston’s Chairman Vyacheslav Trapeznikov admitted in the course of a TV interview that only one-third of apartments had been sold so far, even though the commissioning has been scheduled for the third quarter of 2008. A number of experts report there may be several reasons for this. Firstly, the land allotment where Aston Plaza is located actually borders with Ivanovskoye cemetery, and this is believed to decrease an apartment’s popularity. ‘If an apartment is

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of private individuals’ demand deposits in UralFinPromBank went down by 36.94% (from 5.597 million RUR to 3.529 million RUR) in January-April 2008.

A number of local NGOs and environmental experts presented the results of their public environmental audit of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant’s steel-smelting complex in the town hall on May 21, 2008. The event was attended by the board of experts, Mayor of Pervouralsk Maxim Fedorov, ChTPZ Group’s Deputy GD and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant’s CEO Melik Mori, ChTPZ Group’s chief engineer Dmitriy Markov, some environmental experts, NGO members, and reporters. The audit was originally initiated by the local NGOs as part of their cooperation agreement with Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant that was signed on

SKB-Bank keeps on with its VIP expansion: new Elite-Banks have recently been introduced in Chelyabinsk and Perm, and now this top quality customer service is available to dwellers of Tyumen, Surgut, Rostov-on-Don, and Volgograd, the bank’s press officer reports. The new VIP service centers will be located in the bank’s Tyumenskiy office at 61 Respubliki St. in Tyumen, in Surgutskiy office at 23 Lenin St. in Surgut, in the bank’s Taganrog branch’s Rostovskiy office at 164a Bolshaya Sadovaya St. in Rostov-on-Don, and in the bank’s Volzhskiy branch’s Volgogradskiy office at 16 Kommunisticheskaya

Aston Group appears to have failed to design its Yekaterinburg-based Aston Plaza in such a way that provides enough sunshine to the neighboring apartment buildings. Aston’s Chairman Vyacheslav Trapeznikov announced in the course of a TV interview that, according to the technical requirements, any one room in any building must get at least two hours of sunshine a day. However, he claimed that the buildings next to Aston Plaza only got one and a half hours of sunshine even prior to the beginning of the construction process. The Chairman did admit, though, that their building has deprived its

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to sole traders for 91 to 180 days dropped by 66.31% (from 128.385 million RUR to 43.246 million RUR) in January-April 2008.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development changed the terms of its Great Profit deposit, so now one can deposit one’s money for a shorter period of time, for instance, for sixty-one, seventy-one, eighty-one, or ninety-one days. In addition, the interest rates offered on this deposit type and on the fixed-term deposit (the term varying from 61 to 270 days) were raised. The bank has also modified the terms of its Liquid deposit; one can now deposit one’s money for 31 to 120 days; the topping-up and the partial withdrawal options are provided.

Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division took legal action against Sberinvestbank, claiming the latter has violated the federal advertising legislation, the spokesperson for the Service reports. The Service believes the bank’s car loan ads do not provide any information on the additional expenses the customer would have to bear.

A press briefing devoted to Delta Credit’s introducing its representation in Yekaterinburg took place on May 20, 2008. Delta Credit is Russia’s first commercial bank that specializes in mortgage lending. The bank has been offering its mortgages to Russian customers since 1998; the company became an independent banking entity after acquiring JPMorgan’s Moscow branch in 2001. Delta Credit offers mortgage loans on both existing and new homes market in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, Tolyatti, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and their vicinities through its own

Si SposaItalia Collezioni, the international fashion show featuring the best wedding dresses and evening wear of the year 2009 is to be held in Milan on June 20-23, 2008. This season’s trendiest outfits are to be presented at the show, thus giving the prospective customers a chance to get acquainted with the entire range of new fashionable dresses. Over 130 exhibitors are to take part in the event. The agenda of the show includes sections on wedding dresses and accessories, evening gowns, jewelry, beauty salons’ products and services, wedding cakes, pastry, and much else besides.

‘If a builder does not have the necessary construction permits, its buildings will be classed as unauthorized construction and will have to be pulled down,’ explains Roman Rechkin, Legal Issues Director of Intellect-C Legal Security Agency. In the meantime, Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities insist on freezing the illegal construction process that involves Aston’s apartment building in Radischev and Gurzufskaya St. in Yekaterinburg. For one, the authorities had to react to the local residents’ numerous complaints and conduct an investigation that revealed that this high-rise

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (part of ChTPZ Group) delivered over 27,000 tons of tubular goods to KazTransOil (Kazakhstan) in January-May 2008. The pipes were made of 17G1S-U steel, varied in diameter (530,720, and 1020 mm) and thickness (8 mm to 16 mm), and had some trilaminate polyethylene coating on them. These goods are meant for repairs and field operations of Kazakh pipelines. In fact, Kazakhstan’s O&G and power engineering companies have been ChTPZ Group’s key customers from the near abroad for many years now. Last year, the Group’s tube and pipe manufacturers provided their

UMMC Holding and Russian Copper Company decided to go for a new joint venture. The two enterprises are planning to put up a new zinc plant with the capacity of 300,000 tons of zinc a year. The plant will probably be located either in Kirovgrad, Sverdlovsk Region, or Troitsk, Chelyabinsk Region. The construction of the plant is expected to build up both companies’ shares of zinc manufacturers’ market considerably. At the moment, the project is at the design documentation stage. After all the permits and the experts’ assessments have been obtained (supposedly at the end of 2008), the

Ural Airlines has recently acquired its fourth Airbus 320. ‘The three aircraft we’ve leased have already proved to be very comfortable and reliable. These airplanes have the best airfield performance in their price segment, which means Ural Airlines can now enter many more airports. This also means that every new Airbus signals the introduction of new tourist destinations, including those in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East,’ the airline’s press officer reports. ‘We needed a plane that could be used for the maximum number of flights without requiring enormous maintenance expenses,

URSA Bank has recently made all of its first Eurobond issue payments as well as the coupon ones, with the total sum coming to $66.017m. The coupon payments were determined by the 9.75% annual interest rate. URSA Bank announced it was going through with the redemption of these bonds in March 2008 and bought $160,000 worth of bonds at their face value. This first Eurobond issue, with the original value of $100m, was carried out at Luxembourg Stock Exchange in May 2005 and was to be in circulation for three years. The sum was raised to $175m in December 2005. The issue was coordinated by

Vladivostok Avia is going to launch its scheduled Moscow-Yekaterinburg flight on June 1, 2008. According to the carrier’s press officer, the flights are to be operated daily (except for Wednesdays). The plane takes off in Moscow at 1.05 PM and arrives in Yekaterinburg at 5.20 PM (local time). Then the plane leaves Yekaterinburg at 7.35 PM and arrives in Moscow at 8.05 PM.