The Ural and Western Siberia Regions have been busy with election confrontations and budgeting. Chelyabinsk Region tried to establish close cooperation relations with the Republic of Bashkiria, while Kurgan Region invited Kazakhstan’s businessmen to participate in the power plant reconstruction. Learn more in the weekly events overview by UralPolit.Ru.
The Ural and Western Siberia Regions have been busy with election confrontations and budgeting. Chelyabinsk Region tried to establish close cooperation relations with the Republic of Bashkiria, while Kurgan Region invited Kazakhstan’s businessmen to participate in the power plant reconstruction. Learn more in the weekly events overview by UralPolit.Ru.
Middle Urals: protests
Hunger strike
Professor of the Ural State University Dmitry Strovsky continued his hunger strike last week. He protests against the closure of the school for small number of kids where his son used to go. He even gained supporters among other parents ready to continue his hunger strike in case he has to reject it due to the health.
Elections
The deputies Sverdlovsk Region can’t decide upon the date of the next parliamentary elections. The elections have been originally scheduled for March 2010, but might be postponed until October 2010. The problem will be solved in the Supreme Court of Russia.
Title abuse
A number of officials from the administration of Ekaterinburg, including former vice-mayor of the city Aleksey Glotov, are accused in embezzlement and title abuse. The main office of the regional militia has completed investigation proceedings regarding this case of corruption.
AVISMA reduces titan production
The Corporation VSMPO-Avisma predicts reduction of titanium products sales by 29.5% in 2009. According to the corporation’s analytics, the next three years will be nearly the same in terms of economy, and titanium production volume might also go down.
The company plans to sell 19,300 tons of titanium products by the end of 2009. Compared to 2008 the volume has dropped by 29.5%.
Yugra: budgeting
Local news
Sovetsky area and Megion are busy with the municipal elections. This information filled most of the last week local news feeds of Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District – Yugra. Another serious topic of the week was non-payments for housing services, water and heating. In the town of Pyt-Yakha preparations for the winter season are impeded by non-payments of local dwellers.
Budgeting
The governor of Yugra Alexander Filipenko decided to correct the regional budget. Although exact numbers and calculations haven’t been yet disclosed, they will be made to optimize spending.
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District: holidays
City’s anniversary
Salekhard, the major city of the autonomous district, celebrated its 414th anniversary. The governor of Yamal Yury Neelov congratulated the citizens and spoke about strategic plans of the city development. Those are the industrial projects of development of the Polar Urals and oil and gas pools on Yamal Peninsula.
Gazprom
Konstantin Stepovoi has been appointed the new general director of “Gazprom Dobycha Noyabrsk”. Although there is no official order yet, the head of extraction division of Gazprom Valery Minlikaev, confirmed the fact of appointment.
An Institute closing
The Russian Academy of Medical Science decided to shut down the Institute of Medical Problems of the Far North located in the town of Nadym. The decision was made in August this year. The district’s budget stopped financing the facility during the summer. Currently over 200 employees of the Institute are striking and looking for new jobs.
Tyumen Region: budget and gas pipes
Tyumen regional budget has been corrected last week. Tax and non-tax earnings of the budget were increased by 20.6 million rubles.
Tyumen Region’s gas pipeline network was purchased by “Gas Trunk Lines of Tyumen LLC” at an auction. The company bought 792 gas pipelines for 2.25 billion rubles.
Southern Urals: high profile guests
Bashkiria - Chelyabinsk
The President of Bashkiria Murtaza Rakhimov made an official visit to Chelyabinsk Region. The governor of the region Pyotr Sumin and Bashkiria’s President signed an agreement on cooperation in the spheres of commerce, economy, science, technology, social and cultural exchange for the period of 2009-2011.
The Minister of Regional Development of Russia Viktor Basargin also came to Chelyabinsk last week. He was interested to learn details of a pilot project of increasing energy use efficiency in the real estate sector.
Kurgan Region: budget and elections
Budget-2010
The budget of Kurgan Region for 2010 will be very tight. The governor of the region Oleg Bogomolov held a meeting together with the vice prime minister of Russia Sergey Sobyanin. The region needs to find new income resources.
According to an agreement with the Ministry of Regional Development, Kurgan will receive 990 million rubles for the construction of a heat pipeline for the thermoelectric power plant #2. The regional government needs to find 362 million rubles for this project by the end of 2009. So, the budget’s priorities are going to change again.
Orenburg’s Forum
The governor of Kurgan Region Oleg Bogomolov participated in the 6th Forum of Interregional Cooperation of Russia and Kazakhstan on September 11, 2009. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev also came to Orenburg to participate.
Oleg Bogomolov offered Kazakhstan to enter the project of reconstruction of Kurgan’s thermoelectric power plant. It is a perspective investment project. The power plant will shift from gas usage to coal. Its annual need of coal will amount to one million tons. So the power plant could become one the key customers of Ekibastuz coal mines.
Corruption in healthcare
Kurgan City Court started proceedings against Lev Sklyar, director of the Regional Hospital for War Veterans, and Gennady Danilchenko, director of the Center of Complementary Medicine.
It is a case of embezzlement. Both men are accused in stealing about 3 million rubles belonging to the fund of compulsory medical insuring of Kurgan Region.