Federal Antimonopoly Service declared the advertisement of Perviy Tariff by MTS, the mobile operator, unlawful, as it violated Article 5 (Part 7) of the Federal Advertising Law, and ordered the company to stop violating. The ad ran as follows: ‘The new Perviy Tariff. All the ingoing calls cost $0, a minute costs $.07’ accompanied by a phrase in almost illegible print that this meant the price of an outgoing call to a mobile or landline phone based in the subscriber’s region of residence if the caller was using his or her home network. What is more, the price did not cover the connection fee.

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 2.19% on January 23, 2007, compared with December 26, 2006, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The figure rose by 2.29% 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 2.15% in the city’s second

Yekaterinburg is Russia’s third largest buyer of Russian and foreign cars; it also hits second in terms of number of cars per 1,000 dwellers. There are 365,000 cars in Yekaterinburg at the moment, or 236 cars per 1,000 dwellers, reports the spokesperson for the city council. 129 garages, 124 car washes, and 62 service stations are now available in the city, and the number of car washes is expected to increase to 200 by 2008.

The Bank of Russia issued an order that makes all commercial banks fully reveal the information on the real cost of the consumer loans they offer starting July 1, 2007. At the same time, the Supreme Court supported Rospotrebnadzor, the state consumer rights watchdog, in their claim that the extra commission for servicing a consumer loan must be made illegal. According to Federal Antimonopoly Service, Russia’s consumer lending leaders increased their profits by one and a half to two times by hiding the actual interest rates. The annual interest rate of Russian Standard Bank, for instance,

A new office of Sberbank of Russia known as the Lending Palace is now located at 20 Lenin Ave. in the center of Yekaterinburg. Customers coming here can get advice on the bank’s lending schemes and have their papers filed as well as get the loan itself. In addition to providing loans to businesses and natural persons, all the basic banking services are also available at the new office. Individuals can have their accounts serviced and their currency exchanged as well as sell or acquire traveler’s checks, buy coins made of precious metals, get a bank card, send a money order to destinations in

Jennifer Hazel Lock, the new Consul General of Great Britain in Yekaterinburg, is expected to arrive on January 29, 2007, reports the local representation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russian Federation. Prior to this appointment, Ms Lock used to be Logistics Director in the administration of one of New Zealand islands. She has never worked in Russia before. Ms Lock is supposed to start working in Yekaterinburg on January 30, 2007.

‘Twenty-one business centers with total area of 149,000 square meters were built in Yekaterinburg in 2006,’ expert of the local Commodities Market Committee Natalia Rayskaya announced at a recent meeting. This year, 169,000 square meters of office space are to be introduced. Still, the current shortage comes to approximately 1.1m square meters at the moment. In addition to the business centers, forty-seven consumer service facilities with total area of 80,000 square meters were put up in Yekaterinburg in 2006. Ten of these are located in Verkh-Isetskiy district, two of them in

The Association of Yekaterinburg Builders sent a letter to the First Deputy Head of the Russian Federation Government Dmitriy Medvedev reporting that the Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens Program was put in jeopardy in Yekaterinburg. ‘The city is one of the country’s building leaders, and the new housing statistics for the last three years (570,000 square meters in 2004, 640,000 square meters in 2005, and 730,000 square meters in 2006) is a striking example of this. Yet the changes made to the Town-planning Code and a number of other laws by the State Duma on December 18,

Former Rector Vladimir Tretyakov was elected President in the course of the first presidential elections held in Ural State University. The new Rector is to be elected on April 26, 2007 out of five candidates: Dmitriy Bugrov (Dean of the Department of History), Alexander Pertzev (Dean of the Department of Philosophy), Evgeniy Pamyatnikh (current pro-Rector), Alexei Babushkin (Dean of the Department of Physics), and Alexei Klyuev (Director of School of Business under Ural State University).

Ural Turbine Plant (part of Renova Group) made $37.2m in 2006, which is 33% better than a year earlier, reports the company’s press officer. The company only fell short of the target production figures by .2%; in fact, these figures exceeded the plan for 2005 by 1.6 times. The plant made four steam turbines and one gas turbine as well as over 1,000 spare parts for steam turbines and over 800 spare parts for gas turbines. The total value of contracts for the delivery of steam turbine went up 65.8% compared to 2005. The plant invested over 130m RUR in production facilities in 2006, of which 60m

‘The second inspection of Evropeyskiy Trade Center by the Ural division of Rostechnadzor has been scheduled for February 2007. The officers of justice are now trying to make sure the construction does not resume prior to eliminating all the violations,’ the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor (the state technological safety and environmental watchdog) said to UrBC representative. Rostechnadzor examined the premises of the center in December 2006 and found a number of requirements that had not been met; the trade center had no approved project or reports based on expert examinations of the

The hearing of the trustee in bankruptcy’s report on HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (the general contractor of Noviy Grad, the builder) in the Court of Arbitration was postponed until February 19, 2007, the company’s trustee in bankruptcy Olga Rushitskaya said to UrBC representative. ‘The report was not looked at as one of the company’s creditors filed some new claims,’ Ms Rushitskaya said. HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. is now in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings and owes its creditors over 55m RUR.

‘The inspectors from the Ural division of Rostechnadzor are currently examining the premises of local companies, construction sites, and trade centers; the results may become clear as soon as next week,’ the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor (the state technological safety and environmental watchdog) said to UrBC representative. In the past, the inspection by Rostechnadzor experts resulted in delay in the construction of Evropeyskiy Trade Center; besides, the results of examining Mega Trade Center were placed with the court.

Ural Turbine Plant is going to modify both the company’s production and engineering processes in 2007. The production output, for example, is expected to double or triple within the next three years, this is why it’s important to adopt new technologies and start making world-class efficiency turbines. The plant is to make five turbines this year, namely, a T-35 turbine for PermEnergo, a PT-90 turbine for Inglovait, a T-110 turbine for MosEnergo, a T-53 turbine for MinskEnergo, and one turbine for TurboMotorEnergy. The company is planning to invest $8bn in 2007; all the investment projects

Ural Turbine Plant (part of RENOVA Group) expanded its production plan by 59.8% against 2005 last year, reports the spokesperson for the company. The enterprise only fell short of the target goods output figures by 1.2%. In 2006, two PT-90 steam turbines were made and stocked for Achinskiy alumina industrial complex and for Inglovait, the Hong Kong-based investment company; one GTN-6-U turbine was made for Gazprom. The company also shipped turbines to SibChimCombinat and Pavlodarskaya and Solikamskaya power plants. Over 1,000 types of steam turbine spare parts worth more than 100m RUR were

‘BusinessManCenter currently put up by MAN Center has no construction permits or agreements. It is not known whether the land was officially registered, the deadlines were never met. It looks like the saying they have about Russian developers (one should extend their deadlines and multiply prices by two) is true as far as this building is concerned,’ lawyer Ivan Kadochnikov said to UrBC representative. ‘MAN has been revealing some alarming symptoms; the company’s agreements, perfect from the point of law, protect neither the investors nor the people who buy an apartment in the would-be

Medialogia, a mass media analysis and monitoring system, published its Top 30 Most Attractively Advertised Russian Banks rating. The rating covers thirty Russian companies that got the best publicity in December 2006. Sberbank, VTB, and Gazprombank (three major players on the Russian banking market) occupy the three top positions. According to experts of Medialogia, SKB-Bank hits the 20th position, based on how much positive publicity they got and how attractive they looked. There are 1,189 banks in Russia at the moment. The company used the so-called most favoured informational status

‘We have got one major rival, Grossmart. When Park House Trade Center that now hosts Grossmart was under construction, we were worried about the upcoming opening of a supermarket in the immediate vicinity of our store. However, we have been able to compete successfully; moreover, we are getting more and more customers since the quality of goods and service in Grossmart leave a lot to be desired. The federal chain stores are trying to lure the customers into their outlets with the help of low prices, but one cannot stick to such prices for a long time. The experience of Park House and

Sverdlovsk Region is one of Russia’s ten regions with the most expensive dwellings, reports Kommersant-First Rating almanac. The average price of a square meter of dwelling came to 48,770 RUR in November 2006; which made Sverdlovsk Region’s houses Russia’s sixth most expensive ones. Moscow, with its 106,236 RUR, is the most expensive city to live in, Saint Petersburg got the second position (55,676 RUR); Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region became Russia’s third most expensive area (54,778.7 RUR).

The report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affected the health of Sverdlovsk Region population indicates that Yekaterinburg-based enterprises that release gases without recycling them first dumped 16,016 tons of pollutants in the air. Only 12.9% of local emission points have gas-purifying facilities. Novo-Sverdlovskaya power station (part of SverdlovEnergo) becomes the major polluter with its 20.1% share in the total amount of emissions.