Russia’s Yandex Money to Accept Foreign Bank Cards

Apr. 11 – Users from any country, other than Russia, can make payments to the sites of Russian companies or e-shops through Russia’s online payment system Yandex.Money. Yandex is a popular Russian search engine.

The payment system has recently launched a redesigned website: money.yandex.ru. The website is the main space for transactions, such as money transfers, online payments and transfers of virtual Yandex money to users’ bank accounts. Money transfers will take up to two business days. Read the rest of this entry »

Flights between Alaska and Kamchatka to be Restored

Apr. 9 – The air bridge between the U.S. state of Alaska and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula will be resume this July five years after the collapse of direct flights between Anchorage (Alaska’s largest city) and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski (the urban and administrative center of the peninsula).

Yakutia Air, based in Russia’s northern Republic of Sakha, plans to offer direct flights over the Bering Straits starting in July, permitting direct travel to the isolated Russian peninsula for researchers, adventurers, businessmen and Russian expatriates living in Alaska.

Yakutia Air flies a fleet of 27 planes, including the Boeing 757, Boeing 737, and Russian planes like Tu-154, An-140-100 and An-24RV, according to the airline’s website. It flies to about 40 destinations in Russia and also flies to Asia and Europe. Read the rest of this entry »

Foreign Workers to be Sent Home from Russian Far East

Apr. 5 – Moscow has forced Vladistok’s regional authorities to kick out foreign workers from the Russian Far East as soon as they finish their work on construction sites for the upcoming APEC 2012 Summit, which will be held in the city this September.

The majority of the foreign workers, mostly citizens of China and North Korea, came to the Russian Far East to work on the APEC Summit and benefit from a simplified foreign labor entry regime to Vladivostok, which was set up by the country’s Ministry of Regional Development upon mass requests by APEC contractors. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia to Liberalize Party Politics

Mar. 30 – The Federation Council of Russian Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed long-awaited legislation to liberalize party politics in Russia, despite concerns raised by existing parties, parliament groups and opposition.

The bill, introduced in mid-February by President Dmitry Medvedev following large-scale protests last December, slashed the minimum membership required for a party to officially register from the current 45,000 to just 500 nationwide. Read the rest of this entry »

McDonald’s to Expand into Siberia

Mar. 29 – U.S. fast food giant McDonald’s Corporation reportedly has begun to search for franchisees to expand into Siberia.

The fast-food giant intends to open new outlets using the franchise business model that is the basis for 80 percent of its restaurants worldwide, but has not been used in Russia yet, according to RBC Daily. All of the company’s 314 restaurants across 85 Russian cities are operated independently.

Last week, McDonald’s announced plans to open restaurants in the West Siberian cities of Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and Barnaul. According to a city official from Tomsk, the company intends to open on its own, and also by granting franchises. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. to Issue a Record Number of Visas to Russian Citizens

Mar. 27 – The United States issued 221,888 visas to Russians in 2011, more than at any time in history and 27 percent more than 2010, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul said yesterday at the International Travel and Tourism Exhibition in Moscow.

According to State Department statistics, the refusal rate for Russian applicants last year was 10.3 percent, which is slightly above the 10.1 percent in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia’s M&As Face Slow Start to 2012

Mar. 26 – Russia’s M&A market experienced a strong reduction in value in 2011, dropping by almost 28 percent year-on-year to an overall market activity of US$71.1 billion, global audit and consulting firm KPMG said in its annual report on the M&A market. Worldwide, the value of M&A activity decreased by about 6 percent.

Almost one-third of the total deal value was transacted just by four companies: Moscow-based internet investor Digital Sky Technologies, state gas monopoly Gazprom, Novolipetsk Steel, and VTB Bank. The 21 deals made by those companies came to US$23.1 billion. Read the rest of this entry »

Marriott to Expand Presence in Siberia

Mar. 21 – The second Marriott Hotel will be open in Russian Siberia from December 2014, the Marriott International announced this week. The group’s first hotel was Courtyard by Marriott, built in Irkutsk with 208 rooms at an estimated cost of 25 million euros.

The new Marriott Hotel will be constructed in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

“We are excited to announce this great new addition to our portfolio,” Amy McPherson, president and managing director of Marriott International Europe said. “We currently operate 14 hotels in Russia and see tremendous opportunity to expand across our brands here.” Read the rest of this entry »

Russia to Lease its Unused Farmland to Asian States

Mar. 20 – Russia may officially welcome Asian nations to lease its abandoned Far Eastern farmland at the APEC summit in Vladivostok this upcoming September.

“Since last year, we’ve been preparing a strategy to develop Russia’s Far East and east-west Siberia to announce at the APEC summit. We have 20 agricultural investment items to offer to Asia-Pacific countries,” Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told reporters. Some of these projects include up to 150,000–200,000 hectares.

For now, an area for lease includes the Primorsky Krai, Amur and Khabarovsk regions of the Russian Far East, where only half of the farmland is cultivated since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Read the rest of this entry »

Miners in Tyva Republic to Subsidize Reindeer Breeding

Mar. 15 – The government of Siberia’s Tyva Republic has asked foreign and domestic miners operating in the region to pay subsidies to local reindeer breeders, according to the republic’s web site.

Under the agreement, China’s Longxing and the local Golevskaya Mining Company will allocate 600 rubles (US$20) for the maintenance of each reindeer in the Todzhinsky District of Tyva, where both companies operate and where 77 percent of the region’s reindeer population is located. The funds will go to the district’s reindeer breeding farms. Read the rest of this entry »

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