Citizen of Sverdlovsk Region became a Nobel Prize winner last week. He is the youngest winner of this most prestigious award for many decades. A delegation of ambassadors from Latin American countries visited Ekaterinburg. Municipal elections in the Ural regions brought victory to United Russia. Learn more in the weekly expert report by FederalPress.
Citizen of Sverdlovsk Region became a Nobel Prize winner last week. He is the youngest winner of this most prestigious award for many decades. A delegation of ambassadors from Latin American countries visited Ekaterinburg. Municipal elections in the Ural regions brought victory to United Russia. Learn more in the weekly expert report by FederalPress.Nobel Prize in Physics 2010
36 year old physicist Konstantin Novoselov together with Andre Geim became a Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 winner for groundbreaking experiments with graphene. Konstantin Novoselov was born in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, and graduated from the local lyceum #39. He then studied at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Since 2001 Konstantin Novoselov lives in the UK and works at the University of Manchester, however he remains a citizen of Russia.
New Nobel Prize in Physics winner is the youngest laureate for the past 70 years, and he is the only one younger 50 since 1957. His teachers are still working in the same school in Nizhny Tagil.
Mayor of the city, Valentina Isaeva, comments:
“This is a very strong school, one of the best in this region, with a profound technical basis and highly qualified teachers. Its students often achieve outstanding results at various scientific Olympiads for children. We hope to see more young scientists emerge and win the world’s recognition”.
Maksim Serebryannikov, entrepreneur and politician from Ekaterinburg, however identifies the problem of serious deficit of financial support for the Russian geniuses:
“Undoubtedly, we are proud for our countryman and for his contribution to the world’s science… It is important to develop innovative path of the Russian science, if money had been invested earlier, today Russian researchers would have been much ahead of their European colleagues”.
Ambassadors of Latin America
Last week a delegation of diplomatic representatives of Latin American countries visited Ekaterinburg. Ambassadors from Argentina, Columbia, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Chile and Peru spoke about projects in business, culture and tourism in their countries and met with the authorities of Sverdlovsk Region and businessmen.
The level of economic and cultural development of Ekaterinburg greatly impressed foreign guests. Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of Columbia was surprised to find out that Ekaterinburg was not a closed military town. Ambassador from Chile noted the beauty of the capital of the Urals.
Aleksey Badaev, regional minister of culture and tourism, commented on the main purposes of the high-profile visit. Development of tourism was the primary topic. Ural region stands for a unique and extraordinary destination for the tourists from South America. At the moment there are no direct flights between Ekaterinburg and South American cities, so this is another area of future active work.
“We did not strike any agreements, but we started cooperation which will definitely bring positive results”, the minister concluded.
Election results in Chelyabinsk Region
Long waited for municipal elections were held in the Ural Federal District on October 10, 2010. In Chelyabinsk Region United Russia won in all single-mandate constituencies and all in all will have 72 percent of the Duma deputies seat. The second most popular party is Fair Russia, and then go Communists’ and Liberal Democratic parties.
Director of analytics of Pro&Contra consulting agency Andrey Lavrov points out that “elections results demonstrate the victory of the governor Mikhail Yurevich, the proof of his political competence”. Mikhail Yurevich is member of the United Russia and his party will remain the ruling one in the region.
New mayor of Surgut
Dmitry Popov became new mayor of Surgut. He won during last week’s municipal elections with 58.29 percent of votes. Dmitry Popov is member of the United Russia and director of human resources of Surgutneftegas JSC. His rival Anatoly Vats, Fair Russia representative, gathered just 30.81 percent of votes.
Yugra’s Duma deputy Andreev wished new mayor good luck. His way to victory was hard and now the difficult task is to structure relationships with former competitors, make them friends. “Doing it will require sincere commitment and effective work as the head of the city”
Scandal in Yugra
One of the largest dredging companies of Russia located in Surgut and operating mostly in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District, MTA Company JSC, was in the focus of a nearly political scandal.
A vessel belonging to the company was stopped and searched. Law enforcement officers found illegally caught fish and animals killed without license, the official report states. Important officials were on board at the time when the search was made. A series of searches in the offices of MTA Company followed.
MTA director Alexander Makarov considers it an attempt of some organizations to compromise and make MTA bankrupt.
Mikhail Purtov, expert of the Board of Lawyers of Yugra, calls this “raiders takeover” aiming at considerable financial losses and possible bankruptcy of MTA.
Kurgan Region
Governor of Kurgan Region Oleg Bogomolov celebrated his 60th anniversary on October 4, 2010. He received congratulations from the Russian President, Prime Minister, Plenipotentiary in the Ural Federal District Nikolay Vinnichenko and other high profile colleagues. Patriarch of Russia Kirill awarded Oleg Bogomolov a St. Sergey of Radonezh medal.
Oleg Bogomolov started his career as governor in 1996, a very difficult year for the region. Long years of hard work and commitment to welfare of fellow citizens helped the governor to lead the region from the verge of survive to active development. Today Kurgan Region produces a large proportion of special purpose trucks (fire trucks, buses, construction trucks, etc.) and is one of the leaders in the Urals in the farming market.