Business Watch
Krasnodar region’s (Kuban) resorts were visited by 15.2 million tourists in the first 10 months of 2010. Approximately the same level of tourists’ activity was registered in 2009.
Krasnodar region in the south of Russia is one of the major tourists’ attractions in the country with a number of resorts located along the Black Sea coast.
The most visited city in the region in 2010 was Sochi, the host of the 2014 Olympic Games. In 2010 4.3 million Russian and foreign tourists chose Sochi as their vacation destination.
Samara region’s governor Vladimir Artyakov said in his budget message this month that the region has all the opportunities to reach pre-recession levels by 2012 considering the positive recovery rate in 2010 and the regional economic forecast for 2011.
Artyakov said that all major sectors of economic activity in the region are in the process of post-recession recovery. If the recovery rate remains stable the region will be able to surpass pre-recession levels in 2012.
Olga Steblin, an enthusiastic Russian from Odessa has turned her creative energies in this season of goodwill to all men to finding Santas in London who will fill shoeboxes with Christmas magic for underprivileged and orphaned Ukrainian boys.
Sverdlovsk region intends to invest 840 million RUR in nanotechnology development between 2011-2013. This represents a significant increase in expenditure, with 179 million RUR spent in the last 3 years.
The Russian nanotechnology market is under-developed with less than 1% of global market share. Financial support from the government is expected to boost Russian expertise in the sector and help the nation gain additional market share.
Russian regions spent 26.3 billion of rubles in the first 9 months of 2010 for implementation of additional measures to reduce tension in the labor market.
The federal budget appointed 36.4 billion of rubles to support regional labor markets. According to the Ministry of Health and Social Security data 1.56 million of people took part in regional programs aimed at improving of situation in the labor market.
Thousands of demonstrators held rallies in defense of the constitutional right to free assembly across Russia last Sunday, as part of the opposition’s ongoing Strategy 31 campaign. While more than 80 participants were detained in St. Petersburg, events in Moscow took a very different shape than usual. With a new mayor and a rift between rally organizers, nobody knew what to expect from Moscow’s Strategy 31 rally. When the three organizers – Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, and Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin – were told by the mayor’s office that they would be allowed to hold a rally for no more than 200 people on Triumfalnaya Square, it was both the first time ever that such permission had been granted and the first time that the trio had become so split on how to respond. Alexeyeva came to an agreement with the mayor’s office to allow a rally for 800, while Limonov and Kosyakin chose to split off and hold a separate rally – on the same square, at the same time, and still under the banner of Strategy 31 – unsanctioned and thus more liable to a police crackdown, but for as many people as wanted to come.