UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 5, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) is now launching its new charity project within a larger-scale Children Believe in Miracles Program; the new project provides a social worker/curator for every child living in a foster home/orphanage to help them with mastering professional skills, the bank’s press service reports. The goal is to help children in foster care do a try-out for their dream job with the help of a curator who already has the required qualifications and can share their personal success story, guide a child through their

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) increased interest rates on deposits offered to private customers by 0.25% to 0.5% a year on October 1, the bank’s press service reports. The interest rate on Growing Interest Deposit went up to 8% a year (deposit period: 210 days; the interest gets paid into the overall amount every thirty days; you can add more money (any amount) to the deposit any time you like; the minimum you need to deposit is RUR 10,000). The offer holds for customers who didn’t have an active deposit or a savings

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK) was founded fifty-five years ago this month; a number of festive events got coordinated at the plant to celebrate the occasion. According to the company press service, a museum site got opened at the Main Quarry. The exhibition features mining equipment and samples of minerals collected from the nearby mines of Gusevogorskoye Deposit. Among other things, you can see a BelAZ truck wheel, a pair of rail wheels, and the scoop of EKG 10 excavator unit there. The museum is now located just

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems’ Western Siberia branch is about to complete its preparations for the fall and winter of 2018/2019. According to the company’s press service, their seasonal repairs program is now 98% complete. RUR 1.7bn got allocated for the repairs (including preparations for peak workload times). Additionally, the company rescue and engineering teams cleared up more than 3,300 hectares of electric mains passageways and repaired 329 km of 110-kilowatt mains. 366 power transformer units, 624 switchgear units, and 467

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, October 4, 2018. First Freight Company’s Chelyabinsk subsidiary coordinated its first tech drill at Nickel Washing & Steaming Station involving the station staff and employees of Russian Railways (acceptance inspectors and shunting masters working at Nickel Rail Station). The drill focused on how to detect and prevent leaks at tank-type railcars, the company’s press service reports. Head of Nickel Washing & Steaming Station Oleg Shindyaev commented on the importance of doing joint drills to prevent tank leakage. ‘The timing for this workshop is simply perfect:

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2018. Russian customers will have to pay a duty on shipments sent to them from abroad that are worth more than €500. The new regulation comes into effect in 2019, Ural Customs Division’s press service reports. Every Russian national can still receive as many international shipments as they like before December 31, 2018, as long as their total weight stays under 31 kg and their total value stays under €1,000. In case these limits get exceeded, a duty (€4 per 1 kg or 30% of the shipments’ worth) will have to be paid. ‘We can see Russians ordering increasingly

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 3, 2018. The European blue-collar jobs championship EuroSkills 2018 is now over in Budapest. Alexander Arapov and Maxim Aksenov, who study at Magnitogorsk Polytechnic School, both won silver in Mechatronics, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) press service reports. ‘The Russian national team proved truly triumphant at EuroSkills 2018. Our team was No.1 in the team competition, just like two years ago in Gothenburg, Sweden. In Budapest this time, however, we won both in terms of score and in terms of the number of medals. Russia’s national team got more gold

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 3, 2018. ChelPipe Group is going to take part in the 8th Saint Petersburg International Gas Forum on October 2-5, 2018. According to the company press service, the Group’s shareholder Andrei Komarov, Director-General of the company’s pipe-manufacturing division Boris Kovalenkov, CFO Denis Prikhodko, and Tech Director Kirill Nikitin will all be representing their company at the event. ChelPipe Group intends to present a stand featuring ping-pong tables made to look like large-diameter pipes. The company also plans an open-to-all ping-pong championship; visitors to

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 3, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) still remains one of Russia’s leading twenty privately owned businesses according to Forbes Russia, MMK’s press service reports. The magazine carried yet another rating of the country’s two hundred largest private companies recently. The rating only features the businesses where the state and foreign owners have a stake of 50% at the most. The preceding year’s revenue is the decisive criterion in the ranking. Put together, the corporations that made it to the top 200 made RUR 36 trillion in revenues last year. MMK

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2018. Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy got founded nine years ago on September 30. The celebrations involved a traditional show and a large-scale willow tree planting session that took place along the boulevard between Quarter 0 and Preobrazhensky Park (from Wilhelm de Gennin St to Anatoly Mekhrentsev St). According to akademekb.ru, the newly planted trees are specimens of crack willow (Sálix fragílis) 2 to 2.5 meters tall. The tree alley will get extended all the way to Chkalov St in the future. In addition to this, Preobrazhensky Park’s landscape now

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2018. Ural Airlines are introducing a new Sochi-Baku-Sochi flight starting from November 3, 2018, the air carrier’s press service reports. The direct flights will be operated on the modern and comfortable Airbus A320 aircraft every Saturday (departure (Sochi): 6:30 PM; arrival (Baku): 9:20 PM; departure (Baku): 10:20 PM; arrival (Sochi): 11:15 PM). Prices start from RUR 8,154 (one way, all fees included). Flights operated from Sochi Airport are an important part of the airline’s destination network. Every year, new domestic and international flights get

UrBC, Moscow, October 2, 2018. Russian air carriers incurred RUR 40.2bn in losses in the first half of the year, Kommersant refers to the Russian Air Transport Operators Association’s data as indicating. This is, in fact, more than twice the amount of losses incurred one year earlier. Most of these were related to domestic flights (RUR 37.1bn), with the remaining RUR 2.9bn pertaining to international flights. The Association states the losses have to do with rising jet fuel prices. The airlines had to spend 40.1% more on fuel in the first six months of 2018, that is, RUR 167bn all in all.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 2, 2018. Dmitri Koltykov from EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) won the Sverdlovsk Region round of Glory to The Man of Labor Contest as the Best Welder among all the competing companies/employees in the mining and metallurgical sector, EVRAZ Holding’s press service reports. Workers from fifteen Sverdlovsk Region-based mining and metallurgical enterprises took part in the challenge. They had to do a theory-based quiz and a practical task of overhead welding of metal sheets. The judges’ panel (welding experts supplied by the

UrBC, Moscow, October 2, 2018. The average booking window as registered among Russian tourists looking for hotel rooms abroad has been shrinking dramatically since August 2018. The window is currently ten to fifteen days (25% too 30%) shorter than before, tutu.ru refers to its recent research findings as indicating. In September, Russians typically booked their international trips twenty-nine days in advance on average (-30% on a year earlier). The trips themselves grew one day shorter, on average. ‘It turns out tourists are afraid to make their plans beforehand and book early. They tended to

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 2, 2018. President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov came to Magnitogorsk upon Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky’s invitation today. The presidential delegation started their tour of the city from Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) production site, the company’s press service reports. The visitors took a look at Blast Furnace 1 and went to see the unique heavy-plate Mill 500 and the top-of-the-range cold-roll mill unit at MMK’s Sheet-Rolling Department 1. President Minnikhanov spoke very highly of the plant’s production facilities. ‘Magnitogorsk

UrBC, Moscow, October 2, 2018. Some of the amendments in the package popularly known as the ‘Yarovaya law’ came into effect on October 1. This means Internet service providers are now obliged to store all of their users’ online traffic produced in the last thirty days. The storage units’ capacity is expected to rise by 15% a year for the next five years to come. The ‘Yarovaya law’ was signed by the President on July 7, 2016. The initiative imposed much stricter data user tracking and storing regulations and imposed a number of new obligations on the ISPs and online services. The part of the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2018. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems (FGC UES) got 137 power substations and 21,600 km of electric mains in Ural Federal District ready for the fall/winter. According to FGC UES Western Siberia’s PR & Media Group, the issues relating to Ural Federal District’s preparedness for the coming cold season was discussed at the recent National HQ for Power Facilities Security’s meeting on the fall and winter of 2018/2019 in Surgut on September 27. The meeting was chaired by Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Andrei Cherezov. FGC UES operates two

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 1, 2018. Russia’s leading pipe manufacturer and integrated oilfield solutions supplier ChelPipe Group reports a second installment of money has been received as part of the syndicated credit line opened to the company by a club of six major international banks in December 2017. According to the company’s press service, the second tranche ($24m and €10m, to be repaid within the next four years) got provided by ICBC Bank, Banca Intesa, Commerzbank (Eurasia), PAO Rosbank, and Agricultural Bank of China. Raiffeisenbank acts as the facility agent in the case. The

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 1, 2018. A refractory lining resistance record was set for the twin hearth furnace (THF) of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Electric Steel-Smelting Department this month, MMK Information & PR Department reports. The periclase-carbonaceous refractory lining remained three full months in THF No. 32 and withstood 1,265 melting rounds successfully. The last time a lining resistance record was broken was in 2005, when the inside lining held through 1,259 melting rounds. Being able to use the same lining for an increased number of melting operations means a

UrBC, Moscow, October 1, 2018. The Bank of Russia is adjusting its national payment system to comply with the international standards, so a new standard was adopted to regulate the financial messaging taking place when money gets transferred upon a customer’s initiative, the bank’s website indicates. ‘The standard provides a description of how the financial messaging system should operate in compliance with the international standard ISO 20022 and in compliance with the Russian national payment system law. The standard also covers all the basic interaction scripts for the actors involved in