Russia’s Best Plays festival began in Yekaterinburg on November 30, 2006; the event is conducted by the Golden Mask National Theatre Prize and sponsored by Sberbank of Russia. People living in Yekaterinburg will be able to see 10 plays presented by the theatres from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Omsk, Abakan, and Vilnyus: all of them became winners and laureates of the Golden Mask Prize. ‘This event was made possible largely due to Sberbank of Russia, our general sponsor. The bank has been doing a great deal for the cultural development of this country. This year, Sberbank is going to

‘The continually increasing price per square meter of housing in 2006 resulted in extremely upscale figures, so right now we are expecting the real estate market to grow more stable; we believe the price should drop by 10% to 15%,’ Vice President of Russian Guild of Realtors Konstantin Aprelev announced at the conference devoted to the region-specific features of real estate market in the Ural Federal District in the first year of the national Available and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens program. ‘However, the real estate prices will definitely grow in the future alongside with the

Starting November 1, 2006, Ural Foil (part of SUAL Holding) has been signing all its contracts with the help of UseTender.com. ‘UseTender.com is a software program that helps large industrial enterprises hold tenders for the supply of goods and rendering of services. This technology makes this labour-consuming process much easier and less complicated; the system automatically tackles the things that normally take a lot of time on the part of supply and sales clerks, such as announcing your needs, doing the tender and receiving the computer-compiled list of competing suppliers,’ the

UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. (part of United Machine Building Works) signed contracts with Mittal Steel Temirtau of Kazakhstan and Mittal Steel Skopje of Macedonia for the supply of over 1,700 hot- and cold-rolling rollers in 2007. The enterprise also expects to sign ?2.5m worth of contracts with Mittal Steel Galati of Romania, Mittal Steel Ostrava of the Czech Republic, and Mittal Steel Poland in the nearest future. All of these companies are part of Arcelor Mittal. In addition, the representatives of Arcelor Mittal and UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. have reached a preliminary agreement concerning the

Buildings meant for commercial purposes and a trade and entertainment center will be put up in Academic construction project area in 2009, the Managing Director of the project Stanislav Pridvizhkin announced at the conference devoted to the region-specific features of real estate market in the Ural Federal District in the first year of the national Available and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens program. According to Mr Pridvizhkin, they will start developing the engineering facilities first, as well as building roads and interchanges. At the same time, the first residential quarter

The festive opening ceremony of Yekaterinburg’s third sales and services center of MegaFon Ural, the mobile phone operator, was held at 122 Malyshev St. on December 1, 2006. The new office employs the express servicing system, which means their client can be served 1.5 times faster than usual. All operations from subscribing to the network to paying for the phone connection are performed by one and the same clerk, which saves the customers’ time. This method is currently used in all of the offices of MegaFon Ural set up in 2006. ‘Caring for our customers and providing them with the best

According to the press officer for Yekaterinburg Customs Administration, their special anti-smuggling operations in November (Brand and Consumer) aimed at revealing abuse of intellectual property rights resulted in disclosing a case of abusing Zinger trademark by some legal body that acquired and imported Zinger manicure kits. The examination of the goods by Yekaterinburg customs, however, revealed that some of those kits were definitely counterfeited, as they had no papers from the trademark bearer that would allow selling of these goods or papers that could certify that the goods had

The employees of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) proved their skills by winning six prizes in the annual professional craftsmanship competition known as Evraz Best Young Worker. The contest was held in Novokuznetsk and comprised ten professional categories, with over 100 young workers from the Group’s metallurgical and ore mining enterprises. Vyacheslav Vitvitskiy became the Best Turner, Sergey Antipin became the Vice Best Repair Person, blast-furnace keeper Konstantin Kropotov, electrician Boris Volkov, gas-fitter Alexei Pamyatnikh, and crane operator

Following the order of Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin, the families of fire victims from Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk will receive cash benefits, says the spokesperson for the Governor. The relatives of eight of the company’s employees who were killed by the fire and roof failure at the sheet-rolling shop of the complex on November 28, 2006 are to get cash benefits of 100,000 RUR. The money is to be allocated from the regional budget. The funerals of the victims should take place in Magnitogorsk on December 1, 2006. The regional Minister of Industry Evgeniy

Energozaschita Insurance Broker JSC conducted a number of tenders for property and private insurance agreements with power generating companies comprising RAO UES of Russia. Ingosstrakh insurance company won the tender announced by Center and Northern Caucasus Interregional Network Company JSC in the following categories: - insurance of property against fire and other calamities, against terrorism, insurance of machines and equipment against breakdowns, insurance against disruption of production, and multi-purpose insurance of building and assembly jobs for Corporate Service Systems;

Energozaschita Insurance Broker JSC conducted a number of tenders for property and private insurance agreements with power generating companies comprising RAO UES of Russia. Ingosstrakh insurance company won the tender in the following categories: - voluntary medical insurance, insurance against accidents and diseases for KolymaEnergo, MagadanEnergo, and YakutskEnergo; - civil liability insurance for entities using dangerous production facilities and waterworks for KolymaEnergo, MagadanEnergo, YakutskEnergo, AmurEnergo, Verkneye-Mutnovskaya Power Plant, and GEOTHERM JSC; -obligatory car

United Machine Building Works signed an over $7.5m contract recently, reports the company’s press officer. UralmashSpetsstal (part of United Machine Building Works) signed an agreement with Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Novolipetsk, promising to produce a large number of backup rolls and working rolls for all of their rolling mills. Under this agreement, UralmashSpetsstal will supply the Complex with 200m RUR worth of forming rolls in 2007. UralmashSpetsstal produces four types of steel rolls: hot- and cold-rolling backup and working rolls used in the rolling mills for producing

Uralvneshtorgbank used a $10m subordinate loan from the International Finance Corporation (the investments division of the World Bank); all credit payments are to have been made by 2013. The loan is now transferred into the bank’s capital, whose scale determines the financial ratio and thus affects the bank’s potential. Uralvneshtorgbank is the first and so far the only bank in Svedlvosk Region to receive a subordinate loan from the IFC; this loan is the second one obtained by the bank from the Corporation this fall.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of deposits provided by Uralprivatbank to nongovernmental commercial organizations for a term of 181 days to 1 year has gone down by 29% (from 97m RUR to 69m RUR) in the eleven months of 2006.

According to the Ural Customs Administration, $3.7bn worth of goods was imported in the region in January-October 2006, with slightly over 50% ($1.9bn) coming from abroad and 49.5% ($1.8bn) coming from the CIS, which exceeds the figures for January-October 2005 by 15.1%. More goods were imported both from abroad (there was an increase of 17.1%) and from the CIS (an increase of 13.1%). This increase in the amount of goods actually made up for the reduction of the contract prices; the physical volume of the goods imported has come to 30.6m tons in the ten months of 2006, with goods from abroad

‘The subordinate loan obtained by Uralvneshtorgbank means that its capital is going to grow; this is not their only way of getting direct capital investments, they could also sell their shares. Yet this would be difficult to do at the moment, since the bank is currently going through a merger with Sibacadembank,’ said Deputy Chairman of Ural Bankers’ Union Evgeniy Bolotin. Uralvneshtorgbank has obtained two subordinate loans (a $20m one from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a $10m one from the International Finance Corporation) in the last month.

‘If we don’t start putting production facilities right now, Yekaterinburg might feel the shortage of building materials in two years’ time,’ the Executive Director of Sverdlovsk Region Union of Building Enterprises Yuri Chumerin announced at the press conference of the Union of Sverdlovsk Region Builders. According to Mr Chumerin, it is necessary to raise the production output of cement, insulating stuffs, and concrete components. The technological efficiency of the construction process can also be questioned, as Mr Chumerin believes very few local building enterprises have mastered the most

SKB-bank introduced a new subsidiary in Tyumen, located right in the center of the city (61 Respubliki St.) ‘This office renders all kinds of banking services for both private and business clients. The residents of Tyumen will probably find our already-popular consumer loans (Loan for a Friend, Loan for Buddies) and deposit schemes (The Simple Decision and The Multiplication Table) quite interesting. We are ready to offer the businesses and sole traders a lot of banking products and services, namely, the schemes for point-of-sale services (Start, Business Class, Comfort), loans and lines of

The causes of and damage done by the fire that broke out at sheet-rolling shop of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk have yet to be determined, reports the press officer for Chelyabinsk Region Department of Emergencies. Based on what has been revealed by 7 AM today, an exhaust and inflammation of hydrochloric acid placed in the rinse tanks occurred at the etching department of the sheet-rolling shop for yet obscure reason, causing a fire to start. The fire then deformed the bearing structures of the building, so all the metalwork and the roof of the shop covering the area of

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Credit Ural Bank to natural persons for a term of 181 days to 1 year has gone down by 68.71% (from 27.128m RUR to 8.487m RUR) in the ten months of 2006.