Following an outbreak of legionellosis in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region, the city’s water supply facilities are now being inspected, disinfected, and treated with heat. Yekaterinburg decided to follow suit; the temperature of supplied hot water has been raised to 80°C-90°C to make sure legionella has no chance of survival, head of the regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) and the region’s chief sanitary officer Boris Nikonov announced at a press conference on August 7, 2007. Rospotrebnadzor reported on August 6, 2007 that hot water and heat supply

Hospitals of Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region, are currently taking care of 149 people preliminarily diagnosed with legionellosis, head of the regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) and the region’s chief sanitary officer Boris Nikonov announced at a press conference on August 7, 2007. 93 people have already been proved to be suffering from pneumonia, and 66 people turned out to have been infected with legionella. So far, four patients have passed away and one person is critically ill. Statistically, men and people suffering from immune deficiency appear

Ural Telephone Company sold a large portion of Uralsvyazinform’s stock; prior to this, Ural Telephone Company’s share in Uralsvyazinform’s authorized capital used to amount to 23%. This information was published in compliance with the requirement that any issuer and/or a joint stock investment fund must promptly reveal any essential information that could influence its stock price.

SKB-Bank was included in the list of Russia’s Top 100 largest banks in terms of pretax earnings in the first half of 2007; this list was compiled by the Interfax-Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA). The Center reports seven banks from the list are based in Ural Federal District and most of them managed to make over 100 million RUR in terms of income before tax within the given six months. SKB-Bank was declared Russia’s 92nd largest bank on this list; the bank’s before-tax income reached 204.3 million RUR in the first and second quarters of 2007, which made it possible for SKB-Bank to

‘Strong drinks produced by Nemiroff are not at all popular with customers, as far as our store is concerned. We even had to send these drinks back to our suppliers, since the product didn’t enjoy any demand whatsoever,’ Director of Magis Ltd. Irina Samochernova says. ‘Customers appear to prefer cheaper vodka at the moment, given particularly the fact that this vodka is not any worse than that supplied by Nemiroff,’ she notes.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-owned profit-making organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 36.5% (from 3.15 million RUR to 2 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to state-owned profit-making organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 20% (from 6 million RUR to 4.8 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

RusRating Agency promoted the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s rating from B- to B Stable. The agency reports this promotion has been brought about by the bank’s greater efforts in the field of offering loans to natural persons, expanding its subsidiary network, and dynamic overall business expansion. Then, there are factors like impressive share of the regional retail deposit market, a nice reputation on the Russian interbank market, and a clever development strategy. ‘All of the bank’s ratings are currently at least at B level, which means the independent experts think highly

Experts from Ural Airlines’ Economic Planning Department evaluated the results of the company’s activity in July 2007 The carrier performed 1,211 flights on July 1-31, 2007, including 344 international ones, 789 domestic ones, and 78 flights made within the CIS. The total number of flights exceeds that for July 1-31, 2006 by 7%. Ural Airlines flew almost 10,000 more passengers than had originally been planned, with round about 160,000 people using the airline this July (which is 20% better than a year earlier). Some 90,000 passengers used the company’s domestic flights and 60,000 people used

Sverdlovsk Region Court reports that the trial of Pavel Fedulev that began on August 6, 2007 is going to be resumed at 10 AM on August 7, 2007 after a day’s adjournment. Mr. Fedulev is accused of attempted fraud, falsification of evidence, forgery, and mass riots (Articles 30 (part 1), 159 (part 4), 33 (part 3), 303 (part 3), 327 (part 2), and 212 (part 1) of Russian Criminal Code).

The regional budget got a lot more revenues in the first half of 2007 compared with a year earlier in terms of advance corporation tax (27.5% better than in January-June 2006), natural person income tax (31.4% better than in January-June 2006), total revenue tax (39.2% better than in January-June 2006), property tax (44.5% better than in January-June 2006), environmental fees (23% better than in January-June 2006), and state dues (39% better than in January-June 2006), Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Economics and Labor reports. Excise duty revenues dropped by 70% compared with January-June

‘Former Minister of Economics and Labor Galina Kovaleva is highly likely to get a job at Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank, given especially the fact that she is the bank’s BOD chairperson at the moment. Ms Kovaleva might also get a position with a large federal bank that needs to quickly break into the market as well as get a very powerful administrative resource and great government relations,’ Unicom Partner Universal Investment Company’s Asset Management Director Vitaliy Kalugin said to UrBC. ‘I don’t believe Ms Kovaleva’s leaving Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank is going to badly affect the bank’s

The value of net assets of Energy – Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 3.03% over last month. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 5,186,765.19 RUR on July 2, 2007 to 5,029,555.64 RUR on August 2, 2007.

‘'We’ve been on the cellular communication market for five years now, and we’ve been able to offer our customers over thirty different tariff schemes so far. Every tariff and payment scheme eventually grows outdated, so we come up with some new ones. Our main principle is making tariffs both innovational and transparent, that is, clear to our subscribers,’ MegaFon’s General Director Sergey Soldatenkov announced at a press conference on August 3, 2007. ‘In 2002 we offered our customers some tariffs that worked on a regional scale, and now we are also able to operate on the federal level.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to state-owned profit-making organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 29.1% (from 4.999 million RUR to 3.541 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a cabinet meeting on August 6, 2007. The Governor discussed the results of the previous week’s activity with his deputies and offered an action plan for the upcoming days. Among the previous week’s highlights were the successful negotiations with the management of Rosspirtprom Federal State Unitary Enterprise regarding retention of distilleries in Petropavlovsk and Tyubuk. Governor Petr Sumin and Rosspirtprom’s General Director Igor Chuyan decided they needed an ad hoc committee that would draw up a plan on launching alcohol production at all of

Sberbank’s two new brokerage and depositary operations centers welcomed their first visitors in Ufa on August 1, 2007. All of the bank’s customers willing to make money through stock exchange trading can now get serviced at the new offices 8598/0195 and 8598/0197 located at 10 Pervomayskaya St. and 79 Pushkin St. respectively, as well as at Sberbank of Russia’s Bashkirskiy branch one. 'Introducing more bank offices is the first step on the way to turning these smaller offices into full-fledged financial centers that would offer their customers the whole range of services an investor

The value of net assets of Energy – Mixed Investments, the unit investment trust managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. keeps going down. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 5,209,096.02 RUR on July 31, 2007 to 4,990,236.27 RUR on August 1, 2007, or by 1.99%.

'We’ve been on the cellular communication market for five years now, and we’ve managed to persuade over three million people to use our services so far. MegaFon Ural is currently operating in 355 cities and towns based in ten different regions of Russia - and they are all united by a single home-area network. This means MegaFon Ural could provide reliable communication services to all the 15.5 million people living within this area. At the moment, every one in five people living in the Urals prefers to use MegaFon Ural,’ MegaFon Ural’s General Director Denis Malyshev announced at a press

Ural Airlines can boast of an improved website that now offers information on any of the carrier’s flights performed from or to a particular city (that is, from or to about thirty Russian ones and sixteen cities located abroad and in the CIS). If a customer happens to be exploring the airline’s website and picks a city, he or she will be shown a list of destinations and directions available from there as well as a list of airports the planes leave and arrive in, a complete timetable with all the departure and arrival time lists available; in addition, information on the duration and the