The average price of one square meter of a Yekaterinburg-based class B office under construction (interior design not included) grew 73% higher in 2006 as far as the center of the city is concerned (i.e. Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.). Namely, the prices soared from 47,540 RUR per square meter in October 2005 to 69,000 RUR one year later, reports Ural Chamber of Real Estate. As regards the city’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI,

SKB-Bank introduced a subsidiary in Perm, thus expanding its geographical spread in Russia even greater. The office is located in the centre of the city at 30 Gazeta Zvezda St. The bank’s new subsidiary offers the full range of banking services to both businesses and individual clients and welcomes the former from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays and the latter on 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekends. SKB-Bank now has 54 offices, 19 of which are Yekaterinburg-based supplementary ones. Thirty more offices are located in the cities of Sverdlovsk Region, with the remaining five

The report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population indicates that the air in Verknyaya Pyshma is polluted with sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, fluorides, and black copper oxides. UralElectroMed (part of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC)) is the area’s major polluter with its 44.4%-share of all the local harmful emissions. The company is also responsible for 70.2% of all the sulphur dioxide in the area, 50.4% of all nitrogen dioxide, 99.7% of emitted lead, 96.2% of all dumped black

Oleg Cherepanov, Chairman of NOVA Group, was detained in Nizhniy Tagil following the decision of Nevyanskiy court made at the request of the local public prosecution authorities on January 19, 2007. Mr Cherepanov is suspected of a capital offense; he was earlier involved in a criminal suit regarding illegal confinement and domestic burglary; his current detention was performed within the framework of the criminal investigation. Mr Cherepanov had already gone through trials related to robbery and organized crime. NOVA Group refused to comment on the situation saying they would soon produce an

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to sole traders for up to 30 days went down 4.4% (from 44,096,000 RUR to 42,155,000 RUR) in January-December 2006.

Ural Airlines looked at the results of its winter holiday season activity in December 2005-January 2006. The company had designed a special holiday program in advance, with most flights scheduled for January 2, January 3, and January 4, 2007. The carrier’s planes performed 92 chartered flights from December 25, 2006 to January 15, 2007, which exceeds the figures for December 2005-January 2006 by 87.5%. Most flights were bound to Austria, Thailand, China, the Maldives, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey. Such travel agents as Fond Mira, More Travel, Tez Tour, Accent Travel, and Mir made most bookings.

‘Yesterday’s meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency committee resulted in UralTransBank and ROSNO, the insurance company, reaching some sort of an agreement, namely, the parties decided that UralTransBank would once again produce all the papers related to their insurance claim on January 22, 2007. ROSNO, on its part, would take the final decision (whether to pay the money or motivate the refusal to do so in each particular case) on January 29, 2007,’ reports Olga Maslennikova, Vice President of the Association of Regional Russian Banks. The dispute originally started when the

UralSvyazInform, Sverdlovsk Region’s landline and mobile phone operator, informed its subscribers that the company’s radio broadcasting license expired on January 18, 2007. This information was published in Rossiyskaya newspaper and the Federal Financial Market Service Bulletin Supplement. This means that UralSvyazInform is currently operating without a license.

It is mainly due to the fluctuating prices on the global raw-material markets that the Russian stock markets find themselves in a bit of a downfall. Last Wednesday, for example, oil was sold at $50 per barrel. The success of the world’s stock markets, however, might act as the stabilizing factor for the Russian ones. RTS share index came to 1,808.8 points at the close of business on January 18, 2007, which means it’s only gone up .5 points within a week; MICEX share index reached 3,133.6 points. The reason why the global oil prices are going down is OPEC’s failing to keep its liabilities in

The builders that put up the water-conditioning building at Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) are ready to deal with the equipment installation now. The building meant for conditioning water for the company’s heat and power plant is almost finished; the workers have nearly completed assembling the engineering facilities and bases for the power supply units. The first recycling units are expected to arrive at the end of January. A special equipment delivery schedule provides for delivery of all the appliances before the middle of the year. The

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to sole traders despite overdraft on current account went down 44.9% (from 33.994m RUR to 18.724m RUR) in January-December 2006.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to natural persons for a term of 181 days to 1 year went down 32.5% (from 513.314m RUR to 346.298m RUR)in January-December 2006.

‘The Association of Regional Russian Banks classed the independent examination conducted by FBK Company at the request of ROSNO, the insurer, as not objective, since the expert never asked UralTransBank, the other party, for any information or papers. So, one could say that ROSNO only provided the expert with the documents it wanted to show,’ Vice President of the Association of Regional Russian Banks Olga Maslennikova said to UrBC representative. The dispute originally started when the two companies accused each other of failing to meet the terms of their general agreement regarding credit

‘The number of exhibition coordinators in Yekaterinburg is to go down in 2 to 3 years,’ Igor Filonenko, Director of Zashchita EXPO, announced at today’s press conference. ‘Organizing and holding an exhibition has grown quite difficult over the last few years due to the market development, increasing popularity of the service, and global awareness of its importance. The exhibition budget has been rising, too. An average event would cost approximately $3m in Europe or America,’ Mr Filonenko said. ‘Therefore, to be successful on this market, one needs at least profound knowledge of the

‘The introduction of the regional exhibition center must be coordinated between the subjects of Ural Federal District,’ says Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. ‘An exhibition center is a significant project that is both money- and time-consuming. The expositions it is going to host will reflect the interests of the whole region, of the producers and entrepreneurs that work in Ural Federal District. Setting up such centers in every regional town does not seem expedient, so we need to try to agree with the other regions on where the center will be based and what format it will

Sverdlovsk Region did not get on the special tourist and recreation economic zones list, says the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Physical Education, Sports, and Tourism. The region placed an application with the Russian Federation Government, but received no answer in the affirmative; the reasons it has been refused haven’t been revealed yet. The Government has already approved of seven special tourist and recreation economic zones and allotted 325bn RUR of investments, 44.5 of which will be taken from the federal budget. The introduction of these zones is supposed to raise

‘The All-Russian Union of Insurers is going to take part in the meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency’s committee regarding the dispute between the insurer and the bank. We have already received the report on the independent examination of damage done to UralTransBank prepared by FBK Company Ltd. and the official response of UralTransBank,’ Pavel Bichiakishvili, the Legal Issues Director of the All-Russian Union of Insurers said to UrBC representative. The second meeting of the committee has been scheduled for January 18, 2007. It is expected to be attended by the

Eight people were killed and ten people were injured in the pickling line accident at the sheet-rolling shop of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk on November 28, 2006, reports the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor (Russia’s state environmental and technological safety watchdog) in Ural Federal District. An ad hoc committee completed the investigation of the hows and whys of the tragedy on December 29, 2006 and found no violations as far as the performance of the pickling line was concerned. Prior to the roof failure, all the equipment had been operating properly, and no computer

As the spokesperson for Predein and Partners, a PR agency, said to UrBC representative regarding last year’s car sales in Russia, Krasnolesie car center sold 620 foreign cars in January-November 2006. 159 cars were sold at under 1m RUR, 364 vehicles were sold for 1m RUR to 2.5m RUR, and 97 automobiles were sold for over 2.5m RUR. This included 80 Jaguars, 222 Land Rovers, and 318 Volvos.

The report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population indicates that Sredneuralsky Copper Smelting Plant (part of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC)) is the top air polluter in Revdinsky district, Sverdlovsk Region. Its share in the total amount of harmful emissions released in the air comes to 93.2%. Revdinsky district-based enterprises that emit waste gas without recycling it first have already dumped 18,728 tons of pollutants, with 347,999 tons received by the dust- and gas-cleaning installations, of which