briz.r52.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod climate-control company Briz-Komfort (Breeze-Comfort), which stayed online from the early 2000s until April 2024. The company offered a full cycle of work on air conditioning, ventilation and air heating systems: design, sales, installation and maintenance[1]. Later snapshots give the address "Nizhny Novgorod, ul. Poltavskaya 5, bldg. 1"[4], with telephone numbers in the 831 area code[2]. The earliest preserved snapshot of the home page is dated 14 February 2001[1].

"About the company": the 2001 snapshot

The earliest snapshot is a short page with the heading "-*- Briz - komfort -*-" and a single piece of substantive text about the firm. From it we learn that the enterprise "came into the world on 17.09.2000, having been spun off from" OOO PKF Briz-NN, and that its staff had "more than 4 years of experience" in the climate-control industry[1]. Both on the page and in the directory card the name is set as "000 „BRIZ-KOMFORT“" — with zeros in place of the letters in the abbreviation OOO (limited liability company), a common typographic mark of that era.

The 2001 product range is listed by type of equipment: window air conditioners and split systems for offices and homes, cassette and ceiling units, multi-split systems, precision air conditioners "for rooms in which accuracy of temperature parameters matters", ducted mini-central systems, air curtains, compact supply-and-exhaust units and convector-type electric heating panels[1]. The suppliers named are FUJI, FUJITSU GENERAL LIMITED, HITACHI and TOSHIBA (Japan), PYROX AS (Norway), KANALFLAKT AB (Sweden), SAMSUNG and LG ELECTRONICS (South Korea)[1].

The same page states two ties to the region. The firm called itself the official representative for the Nizhny Novgorod region of the state enterprise Foreign Trade Firm Energiya (Energy) — the general distributor of OAO Mashinostroitelny Zavod (Machine-Building Plant), where ELEMASH air conditioners were made — and reported that it belonged to the Association of Climate Industry Enterprises of the Nizhny Novgorod Region[1]. The client list, cut off in mid-sentence in the preserved text, opens with the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation, Nizhegorodpromstroybank, the Russian federal nuclear centre VNIIEF in Sarov, NPP Polyot, Gidromash and the Gorky signalling and communications division of the Gorky Railway[1].

Catalogue, online shop and price lists

By 2011 the site had grown into a product catalogue with a shopping cart. The top menu consisted of the sections "Industrial equipment", "Domestic equipment", "About the company", "News", "Online shop", "Our projects", "Photo gallery", "Our services", "Useful information" and "Contacts"; the header invited visitors to register or to recover a password[2]. The side rubricator broke the equipment down to the last detail: wall-mounted, inverter, column, cassette, ducted, floor-standing and ceiling air conditioners, multi-split systems, industrial VRV and VRF, rooftop, precision and cabinet units, chiller–fan coil systems, fan heaters and air curtains, infrared, diesel and gas heaters, built-in vacuum cleaners, dehumidifiers and humidifiers, electric fireplaces and smoke extraction[2]. Next to it hung a "Your order" block with a total and a "Place order" button, as well as more than a dozen price lists, including separate sheets for split-system installation, for DIMPLEX electric fireplaces and for MASTER diesel and gas heat guns, with "Download price list (xls)" and "(zip)" links[2].

The home page promised an "air conditioner capacity calculation" by means of the firm's own calculator and pointed to the "Useful information" section for articles on how the equipment worked and how it was serviced[2]. The firm called itself the official dealer of Kronemark, BEAM and Master built-in vacuum cleaners[2]. As the home page reported, orders placed through the online shop received "DISCOUNTS OF UP TO 10%", and delivery was free on orders over 10,000 roubles[2]. The "best air conditioners of the 2011 season" showcase has preserved that year's prices: DAIKIN FTYN25GX — 28,400 roubles, Mitsubishi Heavy SRK/SRC-20 HG-S — 25,800, Mitsubishi Electric MSC-GA20 VB — 26,800, TOSHIBA RAS-07SKHP-ES — 24,700, General ASH7U — 22,700 roubles[2].

The contact details changed from snapshot to snapshot. In 2011 the foot of the page carried the numbers (831) 433-45-69, 220-90-00 and 410-33-90 with the note "from 10 00 to 19 00, seven days a week"[2], in 2015 two numbers were left[3], and in 2019 they were (831) 220-90-00 and 278-68-78[4]. Under the menu sat nine-digit contact numbers: 560-918-144 for the sales department and 582-987-215 for the design department[2]; by 2015 the first of them had changed to 657-120-815[3].

The news feed on the home page is a short chronicle of trading. In 2011 it carried a "Special offer on copper pipe (Serbia)" dated 24 February 2011, a saving of 7,000 roubles on a fireplace set dated 26 October 2010, and a delivery of heating equipment dated 27 September 2010[2]. The 2015 snapshot shows entries from 2014: a Saturn ST-FN8266 fan (16 July), a 7% discount on General Fujitsu split systems (27 June) and the opening of a climate equipment showroom at ulitsa Ilyinskaya 41 (24 June)[3]. At the same time the promotions listed a FUJITSU GENERAL ASH12U split system "for a room of up to 30 sq. m" at 43,000 roubles with installation[3].

Its place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The domain lived in the regional r52.ru zone, and it entered the census by way of the rubricator of the nn.ru directory, where the firm's card was described in its own words about "4 years of experience in the field of providing a full range of services in design, sales" and so on. In the summary table of the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating the site corresponds to a figure of 18 according to Counter.nn.ru: the traffic of a single firm's industry site was not comparable with the portals and forums in the upper part of the rating. In the results of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote Briz-Komfort does not appear; no votes for it were recorded[6]. The site's prominence was not a matter of ratings but of business: it remained the shop window of a working company for almost a quarter of a century, and the web archive index for the domain accumulated about eighty captures — a longevity rare for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of that period.

How it closed

The site hardly changed at all: the introductory texts of the home page in 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2024 coincide word for word, down to the greeting "We are glad to welcome you to our company's website!"[2][5]. The signs of fading are visible in the details. By 2019 the "Online shop" item had disappeared from the menu, although the rubricator and the price lists remained in place[4]. The latest news the feed reached is dated May 2016: an offer on Haier TIBIO air conditioners "only until 3 June", from 26 May, and a Fujitsu General ASHG09LLCA with installation for 46,700 roubles, from 24 May[4]. After that the page stood untouched for eight years.

The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive was taken on 12 April 2024: it shows the same catalogue, the same price lists and the same sales department number, 657-120-815[5]. The probe made while the census was being compiled no longer found a live site at briz.r52.ru: the domain is marked as dead, and no move to another address was discovered.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2015 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2019 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, 2024 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)