UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 11, 2018. The Louis Vuitton outlet located in a shopping arcade in Sacco & Vanzetti St in Yekaterinburg will stop operating on January 1, 2019, the shop informs its regulars via phone calls and texts, Kommersant reports. The brand’s Moscow office confirmed the news yet refused to comment on the reasons behind the decision to close the shop down. As things are, there will be only six LV shops operating in Russia all in all: four in Moscow and one in Saint Petersburg and Sochi each. Now Bosco Sport and Etra outlets also closed down at Yekaterinburg’s Evropa

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 10, 2018. Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Tsukanov paid a visit to Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) this week, the company press service reports. Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky, Head of Internal Affairs Ministry’s Chelyabinsk Region division Andrei Sergeyev, Head of the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) Chelyabinsk Region division Alexander Yasinsky, MMK Chair of the BOD Viktor Rashnikov, MMK Director-General Pavel Shilyayev, and Mayor of Magnitogorsk Sergey Berdnikov all

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 10, 2018. Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky informed Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Tsukanov about the current state of affairs in the area. The upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS summits in Chelyabinsk were a special topic in their conversation, Southern Urals Government’s press service reports. Governor Dubrovsky said the summit preparations were in full progress and right on schedule, with no setbacks whatsoever. ‘We have work meetings and site inspections on a weekly

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 10, 2018. EVRAZ Holding started working on its new investment project: upgrading the rail wheel-band department at its Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK), the holding’s press service reports. The goal is to improve the mechanical treatment line and the press/rolling train as well as the quality of end-of-line testing in order to increase production output by 78,000 rail wheels a year and meet even the strictest acceptance and coating requirements consumers have for the plant’s wheel produce. Two new automated lines will get launched to ensure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 10, 2018. A large-scale no-excise-duties-paid cigarette-smuggling channel got uncovered at Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport Customs, Ural Customs’ press service reports. A routine inspection resulted in finding 1,500 kg of cigarettes that got imported to Russia illegally. It was determined that the offenders had been buying the tobacco produce in Kyrgyzstan and transferring it to Yekaterinburg. A customs check at the airport’s freight terminal revealed that the packets of cigarettes had no Russian excise duty stamps on them. Both the confiscated cigarettes and the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 10, 2018. The 17th Appeals & Arbitrations Court dismissed the complaint placed by Russian Orthodox Church’s Yekaterinburg Diocese regarding Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court’s earlier ruling on a set of college buildings in Yekaterinburg. The case was first heard in Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court in June 2018; the Diocese asked for the three buildings to be handed over to the church. The court dismissed the Russian Orthodox Church’s claim, so the plaintiff took the case further to the 17th Appeals & Arbitrations Court. Now Russian Orthodox Church’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardia) Commander-in-Chief for Ural Federal District Alexander Popov presented ChelPipe Group’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) representatives with thank-you letters to acknowledge the plants’ and their workers’ help during the World Football Championship games in Yekaterinburg in the summer. Rosgvardia’s Ural Federal District division thanked and awarded ChelPipe Chair of the BOD Andrei Komarov and PNTZ Head of GR Department Alexander Khanin. As follows from the letters,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. Russia’s largest coke-chemical enterprise, EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) got founded fifty-five years ago this month. To celebrate the occasion, a sculpture portraying a coke-maker was cast at the plant’s foundry department. The statue weighs around 10,000 kg and is, together with the bas-relief pieces, six meters tall. According to the company press service, EVRAZ ZSMK makes more than 3,500,000,000 kg of coke every year and thus fully covers the plant’s furnace department’s needs. The plant also puts out the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. The telecommunications giant MegaFon’s engineers and IT experts made a presentation on the benefits digitalization has to offer to local industries for Yekaterinburg’s business community at the recent Digital Technologies: New Business Opportunities Forum, the company’s press service reports. ‘These days, a company’s competitiveness depends greatly on how digitalized they are. We can see the businesses’ demand for digital solutions rising by around 15% a year. The Internet of Things is one of the key concepts the corporations are interested in: the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 09, 2018. Ural Airlines are now offering their customers reduced-price tickets for flights from Moscow to destinations in Germany, the air carrier’s press service reports. Prices for Moscow-Frankfurt-Moscow flight start from RUR 10,999 (round trip). The flights get operated on weekdays. Prices for Moscow-Munich-Moscow flights start from RUR 9,950 (round trip). The flights get operated twice a week. You can book the tickets on October 8-16, 2018 (for flights to be operated between October 15 and November 30, 2018). ‘Munich looks incredibly different in different

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 09, 2018. ChelPipe Group, A.V. Yakovlev Chelyabinsk State Industrial/Humanitarian Technical School, and Russia’s Defense Ministry signed a cooperation agreement to make sure the school alumni who completed ChelPipe Group’s Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program can serve their obligatory army term close to home, in MoD’s Regiment 14 in the Southern Urals. This year’s first ten alumni will be taking their oath as soon as late 2018, the company press service says. The trilateral agreement stemmed from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s respective

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. The number of people using MegaFon.Musyka (unlimited access to Yandex.Musyka, BOOM, and Zvuk) has gone up by seven times since the start of the year, MegaFon Ural’s press service reports. Typically, the service is more popular with men who use Android smartphones and women who use iOS-based ones. Among the options available are music apps, of which BOOM is currently the most frequent choice. A regular MegaFon.Musyka user tunes in to over two hundred songs/music pieces a day on average and spends nearly eight hours listening to them. Russian tunes are

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 8, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) now purchases all of its equipment repair-related services through the electronic platform B2B-Center. According to the company’s press service, the idea is to ensure auction transparency, automate the processing of potential contractors’ applications, and expand the plant’s customer base. ‘We had B2B-Center’s options range and functionality tested successfully by trying out more than a hundred purchases. There are specific technicalities involved in every type of equipment repair, so it’s important to choose the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 8, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is hosting a meeting with experts from the Competitive Purchases Leader Award’s community board for the first time this year, even though the plant has taken part in and won prizes at the all-Russian professional competition every year since the award got set up six years ago, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. ‘The independent experts used to arrive at their decisions in absentia when the award was first established in 2012. This year, MMK’s management suggested that the experts on the community board

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new flight from Nizhnevartovsk, Russia to Ganja, Azerbaijan on October 30, 2018; the direct flights will be operated every Tuesday, the air carrier’s press service reports. Flight U6 2501: Departure (Nizhnevartovsk): 9:35 AM — Arrival (Ganja): 1:10 PM; Flight U6 2502: Departure (Ganja): 3:00 PM — Arrival (Nizhnevartovsk): 8:10 PM; Flight duration: four hours ten minutes. Prices start from RUR 12,236 (one way; one piece of luggage under 23 kg, one piece of cabin luggage under 5 kg, a hot meal, and all fees included). The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2018. The converter shop at EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) got launched fifty-five years ago this month. The shop has put out 140,000,000,000 kg of steel and 70,000,000,000 kg of steel ingots since, NTMK’s press service reports. The plant coordinated a number of festive events to celebrate the special date. A ‘jubilee' melting session took place at Converter 1; the melting process got supervised by Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for Industry & Science Sergey Perestoronin, EVRAZ Vice President and Head of EVRAZ Holding

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 5, 2018. You Only Live Once, a creative project on industrial safety developed by ChelPipe Group and one of the leading creative agencies Instinct (BBDO Group), won three important awards. The project won bronze as Film (Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/Corporate Image) at the Ad Black Sea 2018 International Festival in Batumi, Georgia, in September 2018. Additionally, third prizes were given to it in Design & Craft — Motion Graphics and Print & Outdoor (Poster Advertising) at Art Directors Club Russia Awards 2018, ChelPipe Group’s press service

UrBC, Moscow, October 5, 2018. Russia’s Finance Ministry has RUR 475.5bn allocated for purchasing foreign currency between October 5 and November 7, the ministry reports. ‘The overall amount of money directed to foreign currency purchases comes to RUR 475.7bn. The purchasing transactions will take place on October 5-November 7, 2018, which means the daily spending will come to RUR 20.7bn,’ the Finance Ministry says. In the meantime, the national budget is expected to get RUR 479.7bn in extra O&G revenues in October 2018, as the actual oil prices are currently higher than predicted. Now

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 5, 2018. Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) signed agreements to annul all of the share lending contracts ChelPipe and ChelPipe Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) had with their creditors Gazprombank and Bank VTB in September 2018, the company press service reports. ChelPipe Group therefore has no encumbrance on its loan book at the moment. ‘The company keeps working to improve its performance and control debt, and the creditor banks chose to approach the case very cooperatively, so we can now switch to borrowing money without additional security. We

UrBC, Moscow, October 5, 2018. 19% out of 2.5 million businesses operating in Russia finished last year off in the red, Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s data indicate. Another 27% made no profits in the financial year 2017. Now the Federal Tax Service’s report covered companies that did not go into liquidation officially but in actuality stopped operating.