NEWS

Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev sent a telegram to Semen Yakubov, the head of the KAMAZ-Master team, and Sergey KOGOGIN, the Director General of OAO KAMAZ, in which he congratulated the KAMAZ-Master team and all workers of the truck-making plant KAMAZ on the victory in Dakar-2010 rally.

Impossible to know if Vladimir Chagin is chasing records but his steadiness and his mastery brought the Russian driver to the top of the statistical top in this Dakar. Winner of 9 of the 14 stages of this year’s edition, he now has 56 stage victories in his track record i.e. the absolute record in the number of stage victories and one stage victory more than the already great number of winnings by Stéphane Peterhansel. The ‘Tsar’ Chagin knocked the race out at stage 1 already to take command of the general standings right away and never leave it... The domination of the Tatarstan squad was total with an additional 4 stage victories for Kabirov and one more – in the last special stage – for Mardeev.

Tatarstanians will have a chance to see Salvador Dali’s masterpieces very soon. The exhibition of the Spanish genius will open in the Fine Arts Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan on February 3. The owner of the collection is Aleksander Shadrin, an entrepreneur and collector from South Ural. The collection formerly belonged to the European fund “World of Dali” founded in 1979 by the artist. It includes works brought from Great Britain, France, Switzerland and Italy.

Courses to upgrade qualification of high-level officials of Tatarstan’s municipal establishments on the programme of State and municipal management were held in Kazan in January 12-15. These courses will followed by courses offered by the Ecole nationale d’administration in Paris, France. Tatarstan is Russia’s first and only region organizing such programmes jointly with the Ecole nationale d’administration.

The opening ceremony of the Year of the Teacher in the Republic of Tatarstan was held at the Pyramid Convention Complex on January 15. Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev attended the event.

The Independent Environmental Rating Agency has publicised the results of a rating study of Russia’s regional economies’s environmental and economic efficiency.

This year, the heads of 76 territories provided information to compile the list. The final winners were identified by adding the rankings each region won in the intermediary rating studies. The regions with the best-managed systems of natural wealth use, energy consumption and environmental protection were said to be the Bryansk region, (1), Bashkortostan (2), Tatarstan (3), the Kaluga region (4) and Kabardino-Balkariya (5) .

Alongside, IERA published a Top 100 list of Russia’s largest companies’s social and environmental responsibility. JSC Tatneft ranks fourth on the list, first among the national oil companies. Nizhnekamksneftekhim is ninth, Tatenergo holding’s Generating Company is 17th, Kazanorgsintez is 26th, while Kamaz is 35th.

The KAMAZ-Master crew headed by Firdaus Kabirov demonstrated the best time among trucks at the 11th stage of the Dakar-2010 marathon rally. It was for the third time that he managed to resist hegemony of his team fellow Vladimir Chagin – the general rating leader was just 32 seconds behind Kabirov.

Dakar participants’ caravan returned from Chile to Argentina on January 13 – the 220-kilometere long special lap began after crossing the border. Firdaus Kabirov covered the route in 3 hours, 2 minutes, 53 seconds. Vladimir Chagin was only 32 seconds behind, but he is one hour, 12 minutes still ahead of Kabirov in general rating.

While two KAMAZ trucks are competing for victory in trucks race, new winner appeared in the cars rating – Gerlen Chicherit on BMW. The second place of Argentinean Orlando Terranova on the “last year” Mitsubishi was not less unexpected – he was 30 seconds behind the Frenchman. Volkswagen pilots Giniel de Villiers, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mark Miller hold places from the 3rd to the 5th. Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) was only the 6th. The general rating leader Carlos Sainz showed only the 9th result on January 13, losing 7 minutes, 19 seconds.

The newly built IT park in the Tatarstan’s capital has been proposed to be converted into a federal centre designing software for the Electronic Government system. The idea was put forward by the RT Prime Minister Roustam Minnikhanov at the final meeting of the Tatarstan Information Technologies Centre, ITC.

The Tatar head of government criticised the performance of the Committee for Small and Medium Business on attracting residents to the new IT park. Considering the decisions adopted in 2009 by the federal authorities on intensifying the development of information technologies at the government agencies, assigning the type of business to the new IT park seems expedient, he noted.

Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev was on a visit to the Rybnaya Sloboda district, Tatarstan on January 14. The President’s agenda included a visit to the dairy farm OOO Agrofirma Kama, participation in the opening ceremony of the sport and fitness complex Delfin and inspection of capital repairs sites in Rybnaya Sloboda.

January 13, Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev conducted a meeting on preparation for the session of the Board of Trustees of the State Housing Fund under the RT President which is to gather in order to discuss the outcome of 2009.