Former Operational Director Ekaterina Golyanova was appointed Deputy Chairperson of SKB-Bank; the decision was taken by the Board of Directors. ‘This new appointment has to do with the bank’s continuous attempts to expand the business and build up infrastructure as well as to improve our operational performance. Our assets doubled last year, and so did the number of offices and subsidiaries. 30 new points of sale were set up in 2006. Both the retail and business areas of the bank’s activity have been developing rapidly, new products and technologies are being introduced all the time. Ms

Ural Customs Administration officers revealed a case of smuggling in the airport of Nizhnevartovsk: a man flying to Azerbaijan on a Nizhnevartovsk-Baku flight failed to declare $11,000. The officers managed to disclose the trick and, since the offender never filled a declaration and did not indicate the sum of money he was taking along (which is obligatory for any amount of cash), he will have to undergo a criminal suit and might get up to five years in prison for smuggling. The decision, however, rests with the court. The investigation is currently in progress; the money was withdrawn and

Federal Transport Surveillance Agency completed the investigation of UTair Airlines related to the crash of the company’s TU 134 plane in the airport of Samara on March 17, 2007. The investigation was mainly conducted in the company’s headquarters in Tyumen as well as in the regional offices in Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk, Syktyvkar, and Ufa. After it found some violations in the way the flights were organized, the Agency imposed flight performance limitations and issued a warning. UTair’s TU 134 pilots without a sufficient experience in the capacity of an aircraft commander were not permitted to

President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin appointed former First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Valeriy Fomin the company’s acting Head, First Vice President of Russian Railways Vadim Morozov announced at the meeting of company’s Board with heads of five railway companies based in the Urals and in Western Siberia in Yekaterinburg. The Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in Moscow on March 20, 2007 that Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Shevket Shaidullin should resign. There were no official comments on the reasons for his resignation, though Gudok

Expert Ural magazine published the rating of Ural Region’s largest banks in terms of net wealth in 2006 on March 26, 2007. The rating was compiled by Expert Ural analytical center. Bank24.ru went up 7 positions compared to 2005 and thus became the region’s 23d largest bank. It also hit 8th among all Yekaterinburg banks, outstripping Koltso Urala, MDM Bank Ural, Grancombank, UralFinPromBank and a number of others. The bank’s assets went up 82% (from 2,725 million RUR to 4,966 million) last year. Its capital reached the point of 457 million, which exceeds the figures for the beginning of 2006

‘Mismanagement of litter and industrial waste is one of the most commonly occurring environmental offenses. There are almost no recycling facilities within the area, so land fills and cesspits around Yekaterinburg are gradually becoming a life-threatening litter circle that smothers the city. The same is true of most other towns,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Environmental Prosecutor Kirill Ershov. ‘So far, our only achievement in this field has been the launch of a separating assembly line in Pervouralsk. It took us so long to set everything up, however, that the equipment became outdated by the

Acting trustee in bankruptcy of HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) Olga Rushitskaya tried to enter the company’s office at 13 Vosmoye Marta St. on April 5, 2007, but former Noviy Grad CEO Yuri Repeta and director of Tamasi Mr. Gogia as well as Noviy Grad security guards prevented her from going in. Ms Rushitskaya had to sign a contract with the general contractor, who removed the latch from the builder’s fire exit to make it possible for Ms Rushitskaya to enter the office. The law-enforcement officers and the prosecutor who arrived at the scene stated

Sverdlovsk Region deputies adopted amendments to public road development project for 2006 – 2008 on April 5, 2007. Deputy Chairman of Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Management Policies Nikolai Krupin said the project would get 8.05 billion RUR rather than the 7 billion initially planned for 2007. Besides, the project is liable to changes throughout the year.

Sverdlovsk Region deputies approved of the legislation on public property management within the region and on privatization process in 2007 in the course of their thirty-fourth meeting. According to Deputy Chairman of Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Management Policies Nikolai Krupin, the region was going to spend more on repair and maintenance as well as on buying the shares of open joint stock companies.

The investigation conducted by the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District revealed that the local division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state natural resources watchdog) violated the civil service law. Despite the legislation and a number of presidential decrees, Rosprirodnadzor turned out not to be verifying data produced by their job applicants, which means quite a few overall conscientious workers keep violating legal norms and regulations. The case of Mr. Kiryushkin is but one instance: prior to becoming Deputy Director for Control and Coordination, he was founder and owner of

The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (aka Rosselkhoznadzor) introduced temporary limits on the supplies of poultry from a Belgium-based BE E 2001 EEG/EG on April 4, 2007 after salmonella was found in some Belgian meat, says Rosselkhoznadzor’s press officer. The Service asked the Belgian food inspection authorities to look into the causes of this meat getting infected and to take steps to make sure this does not happen again. Rosselkhoznadzor also limited import of meat from German DAZ 917 EWG since the samples of ground chicken and pork contained salmonella as well.

Sverdlovsk Region deputies approved of changes made to the regional budget for 2007 on April 5, 2007. The changes were originally proposed by Governor Eduard Rossel and consist in spending the additional revenues (13,949,993,600 RUR) on socially important programs (37%), support of municipalities (42%), extra healthcare investments (additional 2.3 million RUR), additional financing of boarding schools and orphanages (330 million RUR worth of subsidies), and 42% pay rises for civil servants (extra 2.4 billion RUR). 195 million will be used to compensate the war veterans for their communication

The 9th Ural Professional Tax Forum took place in Yekaterinburg on April 5, 2007. The forum, coordinated by Ardashev and Partners, a law firm, was devoted to new techniques in tax management, ‘scheme-finding’, and businesses that aim to reach their goals at the expense of scrupulousness. This agenda was brought about by the major challenge facing the public tax officers at the moment: having to eradicate dishonest tax schemes and to create favorable conditions for those willing to do transparent business at the same time. This means an entrepreneur’s awareness of new tax administration

‘Violations by builders were our major problem last year, which mainly has to do with large-scale construction in Yekaterinburg. Unfortunately, this has had some negative side effects, including more environmental offenses,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Environmental Prosecutor Kirill Ershov. ‘Developers would often begin building without a timely examination conducted by a committee of environmental experts, and only legalized all the papers at our demand in the course of construction. Sometimes they would ignore the need for getting consent of a number of regulatory bodies, and often cut down

Russian Railway executives arrived in Yekaterinburg on business. First Vice President Vadim Morozov is expected to meet heads of Siberian and Ural Railways to discuss performance of railways despite the ongoing repairs and reconstruction. The meeting will probably be attended by acting Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Sergey Kozyrev, Vice Presidents Georgy Kornilov, Valery Reshetnikov, and Vladimir Vorobyev, heads of departments from Moscow as well as from West Siberian, South Ural, Gorkovskaya and Kuibyshevskaya Railways. The Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in

‘Yekaterinburg gambling market is experiencing a dramatic decrease in the number of players, which largely has to do with the fact that new amendments to the gambling regulation law come into force on July 1, 2007,’ says President of Ural Gambling Business Development Association Alexei Galaguzov. ‘There were 360 amusement arcades in the city last year but only 260 at the beginning of 2007, and the number will probably have dropped down to 120 or 130 by July 1, 2007. As regards casinos, there will be no more than six of them operating in Yekaterinburg,’ he reports. ‘Quite a few gamblers are

According to the Ural Chamber of Real Estate, 53% more apartments are now offered for direct sales in Yekaterinburg. The Chamber says the number has been growing steadily over the last few months: the ratio of apartments meant for later re-sale to those meant for direct sales was 57% to 43% at the beginning of 2006, but comes to 47%/53% at the moment. The supply on the local existing homes market is expected to grow between 15% and 5% a month.

The awarding ceremony of Russian Wings 2006 (the national aviation prize) took place in Moscow on April 3, 2007. Ural Airlines (the region’s largest carrier) won in two most important categories, becoming the Carrier of the Year in terms of domestic and international flights, reports the company’s press officer. The first prize was given to Aeroflot Russian Airlines, though. Russian Wings is the only rating-based award that gives one a chance to impartially evaluate Russian carriers’ performance in a whole range of aspects, including the passenger turnover and dynamics, profitability, etc.

The Main Forestry Management Division of Sverdlovsk Region and Consumer Market Offenses Administration under Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs (namely, the Environmental Police Department) signed a cooperation agreement, says the spokesperson for the Main Forestry Management Division. The two authorities agreed to assist each other in responding to environmental offenses quickly and effectively, making sure the culprits can’t avoid being punished and always make up for the damage they have done. Given that the number of environmental police officers will have reached 500 by the

‘The criminal suit of Yuri Repeta, former CEO of Noviy Grad (the local developer) is now being handled by Internal Affairs Administration,’ says Maxim Kasatkin, Director of Economic Offenses Department of Yekaterinburg Internal Affairs Administration. ‘The additional accounting examination by experts that should reveal which financial frauds have brought the company to its knees financially has not been completed yet; the case could be placed with the court at the end of May 2007,’ Mr. Kasatkin explains. Yuri Repeta is accused of fraud; in the meantime, HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (Noviy Grad’s