enter.nn.ru was a Nizhny Novgorod website about club music and nightlife, published under the banner "enter — Music-Clubs-Party Scene — in Nizhny Novgorod"[1]. It was run by SoundTelecom Group, which signed its pages with the mark "2002 enter-project"; the address given for contacting the editors was info@enter.nn.ru[1], and later also an ICQ number, 150001716[2]. The group described itself as a creative-production outfit[3]. The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 30 June 2002[1], and the last is dated 18 June 2012, by which point the address no longer hosted a club site but a page for the SoundTelecom Group studio and its "HelpNN" service desk[4].

How the site was organized

The home page was built as a feed of "hot news" with a promise of daily updates; the section menu consisted of "News", "Articles", "Reports" and "News Archive"[2]. Readers were invited into the site's own communication spaces: "Arrange it on the forum! Meet up in the chat!", the home page announced[2]. It also carried a "Your opinion" poll and ran a news mailing list, while the site's acknowledgments listed "NN.RU", "Nashe Radio" and "Studencheskiy Gorodok" (Student Town)[2].

A separate "DJs" section collected chart lists of local DJs, their self-written bios, and sets posted for free download. By the summer of 2003 the openly available recordings included those of Dj Kapchitz, Dj Clam, Dj Feel, Dj Relax, Dj Onix and Dj Eugene, with two more sets — Dj Lazy and eXclusive — announced as forthcoming[2]. Upload parameters were spelled out right in the text: Max Kapchitz's roughly hour-long "Funky Sunday" set was split into 14 tracks in MPEG-1 Layer 3 format, 128 kbit/s, 44100 Hz, stereo, with commercial use permitted only by arrangement with the editors[1]. The "Service" section featured a club "Navigator" of Nizhny Novgorod — a map meant to help visitors find the club they were looking for[1].

The site also tried to earn money. DJ Fluide Onze's mix "BREAKBEAT TIPS", released in a limited CD-R run, was sold for 90 rubles, ordered through the editorial email[2]; SoundTelecom Group offered organizers of mass events and music projects informational sponsorship from the site[2]. "ENTER NATION" T-shirts were also promised to be made to order[1].

Club chronicle of 2002-2003

A substantial share of the surviving text consists of party reports. "It blew Nizhny's mind" is how the site described the rave on 25 May, the first held at the "Matritsa" entertainment cinema complex, where DJ Arkady Air and his Nizhny Novgorod colleagues played[1]. For 5 July 2002 the site announced The HotTTest Summer party, which SoundTelecom Group was preparing together with the ART-L production center at the "Ray.Com" night club, on the attic floor of "Sputnik"[1]. It also covered the "Subtropic-2002" festival, whose qualifying parties ran from mid-May to late June across six Russian cities, including Nizhny Novgorod, with the final held in Batumi[1].

Later material covered the results of the "Journey to Pluxemburg" party on 7 December at the "Pyaty Element" ("Fifth Element") club, with a ticket giveaway among attendees[2], and "Nizhny Novgorod DJ Day", held on 2 November 2002 at the "Nautilus" club for the second time already, with awards in the categories "DJ of the Year", "Discovery of the Year", "DJ Promoter of the Year", "DJ Stunt of the Year", "Claim of the Year" and several other "honorary categories"[2]. In late May 2003 the site also noted the appearance online of the official page of the DJ Parade festival[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the nn.ru site directory, enter.nn.ru was listed in the "Projects: Music" category. In a snapshot from 16 September 2003 it had a rating score of 120 — twelfth place by rating among 87 sites in the category (the results page held 25 entries per page)[5]. The directory description promised "a gathering place equal to quality club parties", where visitors could download a flyer or a mix, find a DJ, or order a CD or vinyl[5]. The site does not appear in our surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating, and it is absent from the results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, which lists around 190 participating addresses[6]. On the methodology behind such snapshots, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating; on the era as a whole, see the article on the Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

The portal that never survived, and the end of the domain

On 29 January 2005 the address carried an announcement page: SoundTelecom Group and the editors of the ENTER project promised a "new Nizhny Novgorod information-and-entertainment portal" that would become "a mirror of all the city's cultural and entertainment events, a place for free communication and open partying", as the home page put it[3]. The contact address given there was now in the nnov.ru zone, alongside the same ICQ number as before[3].

The snapshot from 18 June 2012 shows no trace of the portal: at enter.nn.ru there was now a site for "SoundTelecom Group + HelpNN:: Intellectual and Technical Support", with sections about the company, its portfolio, and web design. The studio reported migrating the "Nizhny Novgorod Medical Company" website to its own platform, a site mockup for the construction company "Demontazh-NNOV", and the launch of its own hosting servers together with the "HelpNN" service desk, working across Nizhny Novgorod and the surrounding region[4]. That is where the archival record of the address ends: the last snapshot in the Wayback Machine is dated 18 June 2012[4], and by the time of our survey the enter.nn.ru domain no longer existed.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2012 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Projects: Music" category, 2003 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)