The officers of Ural Customs Administration confiscated bottles of pirated Hugo Boss perfume offered for sale in a Salekhard-based mall last weekend. The owner of the produce failed to produce any agreement with the right holder’s representative, which violates the intellectual property protection law. The perfume, worth about 35,000 RUR, was withdrawn and stocked at a warehouse; the seller will now have to undergo a lawsuit regarding abuse of a registered trademark.

According to Continent Siberia newspaper, URSA Bank was Siberia’s second largest bank in terms of net wealth (85,365 million RUR), outstripped only by Siberian Bank of Sberbank of Russia. The bank is on the most impressive Siberian banks list in terms of capital, profits, investments by businesses and natural persons, and loan portfolios as well.

According to RosBusinessConsulting, Bank 24.ru rose from the 262 th to the 224th position in the All-Russian bank rating based on net wealth indices last year. The bank’s net wealth went up 180% in 2006. ‘Since we managed to double our capital last year, the company moved up 130 positions in the Top 1000 rating based on banks’ own capital. We also hit the 191 th position in terms of loans to legal entities; the bank gave its clients 733.5 million RUR worth of loans in 2006,’ reports the spokesperson for Bank24.ru.

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy met RENOVA Stroy Group executives to discuss the construction of the would-be Academic district of the city. The Mayor says the meeting was mainly devoted to land allotments distribution; RENOVA Stroy Group is going to put up buildings in one part of the district beginning as early as this summer, the city council will be responsible for using the other part. This new district is to appear in the south-west of Yekaterinburg and is expected to occupy 2,500 hectares of land, with 1,200 hectares covered by forests and parks and 1,300 hectares used for

The average existing home prices (per square meter of dwelling) in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) went up 2.01% on March 27, 2007, compared with February 27, 2006, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The figure rose by 0.90% in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI – downtown and the south-west and the south-east of the city), by 0.71% in the city’s second

‘Auchan supermarkets with area of 10,000 to 15,000 square meters will be set up in seven districts of Yekaterinburg,’ says Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘The region has already agreed with the company’s management on this number of stores, with more supermarkets to be introduced in other large towns such as Serov, Krasnoturinsk, and Nizhniy Tagil,’ the Governor observed.

On March 29, 2007 Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Republic of Udmurtia decided, upon considering two reports on administrative violations by Euroset Nizhniy Novgorod Ltd., to impose on the company two fines worth 500,000 RUR each for inappropriate outdoor advertising in the city of Izhevsk. Euroset apparently used billboards with some obscene slogans, which backfired immediately: the city council and one local citizen placed their complaints with the Federal Antimonopoly Service. Euroset’s advertising campaign was seen by the Service as a grave violation of the Russian Federation

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference that he had accepted the resignation of the region’s Minister for Natural Resources Alexander Yastrebkov ‘Russian law prevents anyone over 65 from keeping this position, and this is the main reason why Mr. Yastrebkov has had to resign. I have, however, made a nice proposal regarding preparations for the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit that might interest him,’ the Governor said.

Chairman of Russian Trade Union of Railway and Transport Workers Nikolai Nikiforov came on a two-day visit to Sverdlovsk Region Railways on March 30, 2007. According to the company’s press officer, Mr. Nikiforov is to meet a number of workers and members of the trade union as well as examine the premises of the company’s various departments, security service, and socially important facilities. Mr. Nikiforov is also expected to take part in the workers’ conference held in the headquarters of Sverdlovsk Region Railways in Yekaterinburg. The agenda of the conference includes new paying schemes,

The investigation conducted by Yekaterinburg division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) revealed some grave sanitary violations in the way the food was made and served in the school canteens. The most common violations include not storing the foods properly, offering food that is no longer fresh (31%), negligent cleaning of dishes and utensils (29%), and deviations from the two-week menu and assortment of foods recommended by Rospotrebnadzor. Lab tests showed that 1.8% of dishes were not safe enough to eat. Rospotrebnadzor imposed 81 fines worth 47,700 RUR on the schools

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by GRAN Commercial Bank to profit-making NGOs despite overdraft went down 25.7% (from 168,081,000 RUR to 124,927,000 RUR) in May-December 2006.

MegaFon now offers GPRS roaming through Vodafone Albania Sh.A., which makes it Russia’s first mobile operator to offer its clients GPRS services all over Europe. MegaFon supports GPRS roaming through 145 operators based in 88 countries and providing communication services to 94 countries.

Metallurgical Plant of Nizhnyaya Salda (part of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil and of Evraz Group) is restoring the city’s only ski stadium. The stadium has remained unused for six years, despite being located next to a city block and a number of educational establishments. A lot of city dwellers, including 1,500 schoolchildren, sport-practicing adolescents, and vocational school students, used to visit the stadium regularly, so the Veteran Council of Metallurgical Plant of Nizhnyaya Salda and the company’s employees decided to restore the site in January 2007, reports the

The Russian Federation Government prohibited selling audio CDs, sound tracks, databases, or software in the open air – that is, from street stalls or tents through changes in the Goods Selling Regulations adopted on March 30, 2007, reports the Government’s press officer. Moreover, sellers must now provide their customers not only with data as to the producer’s name and address, license number, and the product’s technical characteristics, but also with information on the copyright holder and the software registration number (in case the CD contains computer programs) if this software has been

MegaFon Ural, the mobile operator, introduced new bonus schemes on April 1, 2007. The company’s customers can now get sets of 30, 60, 120, and 250 minutes of local conversations and a set of 30 multimedia messages free of charge for 50, 95,180, 340, and 45 points, respectively (The number of points you score depends on how much you actually talk). The earlier bonuses (free local conversations for a day, for a weekend, and for a month) will no longer be available beginning from May 1, 2007. Both the new and the old schemes will be valid throughout the month of April. The advantage of the new

‘Sverdlovsk Region has been trying to contribute to making Yekaterinburg a better place. We have already allotted 1 billion RUR for building road junctions this year, with another billion to be invested in 2008,’ says Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘The city is going to get environmental police responsible for a number of issues, including the state of the roads. The police will comprise 500 officers who will monitor the performance of local housing and maintenance companies. In case their cleanup efforts have little or no efficiency, these companies will be fined,’ the Governor

SKB-Bank has recently signed a number of payment transfer agreements with local companies and organizations. One can now make payments to Sverdlovsk Region Information and Tourism Center, GlavTour Ltd., Co-owners of 63 Furmanov St., Co-owners of 3/1 Rodonitovaya St., Co-owners of 62 Krasnoarmeyskaya St., Co-owners of 51 Slavyanskaya St., and Co-owners of 18 Mendeleyev St., as well as to most local colleges, mobile and landline operators, reports the bank’s press officer. One can also pay one’s housing bills, realtor’s and insurance fees, and rent. The service is available at any of SKB-bank’s

‘The Russian Federation law states that if dishonest builders fail to use their land allotments within three years, these allotments must be withdrawn; we intend to stick to the letter of the law,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference. ‘The thing is, when no building is put up on the land, people who invested in the future apartments are obviously suffering, which has inevitable social implications. So, in case a land allotment is obviously misused, the builder will have to part with it,’ Mr. Rossel explained. The Governor said earlier that the

Yekaterinburg is going to host the 5th International Conference on Heating Equipment Restoration, Maintenance, and Repair on March 28-30, 2007. The conference is aimed at information exchange and experience-sharing. The participants (executives of RAO UES of Russia, territorial power generating companies, power stations, contractors, and machine-building enterprises from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Europe, and Japan, as well as faculty of industrial colleges) are to discuss the ways of upgrading equipment, using advanced turbine-making technologies, cooperating with foreign

Yekaterinburg’s law-enforcement officers revealed that one of the Federal Communication Surveillance Agency executives accepted bribes, reports Valeriy Gorelikh, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs. ‘The officers searched the headquarters of the agency’s regional division at 39 Lenin Ave. and withdrew some papers that prove the agency’s executives are corrupt,’ Mr. Gorelikh noted. ‘One of them used his position to make local companies dealing in communication services include his relatives in the list of founders. The name of the offender is withheld for