hse.nnov.ru was the site of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Higher School of Economics, running on a third-level domain in the nnov.ru zone. The home page's title read "Высшая Школа Экономики - Нижний Новгород" ("Higher School of Economics — Nizhny Novgorod"), and the footer signature gave the address: 603155, Nizhny Novgorod, Bolshaya Pecherskaya St., 25/12[1]. In its news items and announcements the site called itself, in short form, "НФ ГУ-ВШЭ" ("NF SU-HSE"), and in full, "State University - Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod"[1]. According to our census of the domain, web-archive snapshots of the home page run from March 2, 2001 to February 11, 2014, the date of the last preserved snapshot[3]; the earliest snapshot showed not the site itself but the line "Site closed... Maintenance work in progress."

What the site looked like in 2007

A snapshot from September 22, 2007 captured the site with a menu of eight sections: "news," "announcements," "downloads," "photo gallery," "questions and answers," "library," "student life," "contacts"; separately there were "Home," "Site map," and a search box[1]. Five more links led to major sections: "About HSE," "Faculties and departments," "Prospective students," "Continuing education," "Science"[1].

The announcements block at that time carried two notices: one about ongoing admissions for the part-time (evening) program, and one stating that "НФ ГУ-ВШЭ проводит Дни открытых дверей" ("NF SU-HSE is holding Open House Days")[1]. The news feed for September 2007 gives a sense of the branch's daily life. On September 5 it was reported that on September 3 the "Induction of Students" ceremony had taken place for new admits to the State University - Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod[1]. On September 11 a notice about a student research competition was published: by order of the director dated September 10, 2007, a competition for the best student research paper was announced, running from September 10 to December 10[1]. On September 18 two items appeared at once: about Andrei Valentinovich Aistov, associate professor of the "Economic Theory and Econometrics" department, who taught the courses "Econometrics" and "Economic Theory" and completed an internship in the Netherlands in June 2007, and about a social project that students of the "State and Municipal Administration" program, M. Agafonova and Yu. Bobyleva, had spent three months developing for Public Self-Government Council No. 7 of the "Severny" microdistrict in the Avtozavodsky district of Nizhny Novgorod[1]. The most recent news item at the time of the snapshot, dated September 21, was titled "Utility Workers Went Back to School": on September 18 classes began in a professional-development group for city administration employees, whose main attendees, as the home page reported, "were housing management company managers and their deputies"[1].

Later appearance: 2013–2014

By the August 5, 2013 snapshot the home page looked different: the page was titled simply "Higher School — Home Page," and the navigation had become an alphabetical list of twelve items — "Prospective students," "Announcements," "Library," "10 Years of SU-HSE in Nizhny," "Continuing education," "Alumni club," "Contacts," "International cooperation," "Science," "News," "Quality management system," "Faculties and departments"[2]. The page carried a welcome text about the university, signed: "V. V. Putin, President of Russia, Moscow, the Kremlin, November 27, 2002"[2].

Some of the material still related to academic life: the home page noted that "a graduation ceremony for full-time students who completed their studies in 2013 will be held on July 5" — although the snapshot itself was taken a month after that date[2]. But by this time the news feed had drifted noticeably from university topics: alongside items such as "Rules for University Admission" (April 8, 2013) and "Who Is a Bachelor" (April 2, 2013) sat a news item from June 2, 2013, "An English-Language Kindergarten to Open in Kostroma in 2013"[2]. In the February 11, 2014 snapshot the feed was topped by two more unrelated entries — "Why Are Speed Bumps Installed" from November 18, 2013 and "Stock Trading Activity" from September 2, 2013[3]. Meanwhile the footer of both snapshots still carried the same Nizhny Novgorod address — 603155, Nizhny Novgorod, Bolshaya Pecherskaya St., 25/12 — with the "phone" field reading "see contacts"[2][3]. Both snapshots also had a "New video" block made up of repeating identical links: thirty-nine of them labeled "Read" in 2013[2], and twenty labeled "Read the news" in 2014[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

hse.nnov.ru entered our sample of Nizhny Novgorod Internet not through a rating but through the nn.ru topical directory, where it was listed under the name "Higher School of Economics" with the description "information for students, prospective students, and teachers" (spelling of the original directory entry preserved) and marked "Rating: none." The site does not appear in the preserved samples of the Counter.nn.ru counter, so its traffic cannot be judged from our data — see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating. In the surviving results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, neither the address hse.nnov.ru nor the school's name appears[4].

How it closed

The last preserved snapshot of the home page is dated February 11, 2014[3]; our web-archive census knows of no later states of the site, and the domain itself is recorded as inactive. Judging by the snapshots, substantive updates had stopped earlier: the last news item recorded on the home page is dated November 18, 2013[3]. The web-archive snapshots span nearly thirteen years — from March 2, 2001, when a maintenance notice stood in the site's place, to February 11, 2014 — and over that time the site managed to serve both as a living feed of university life and as a platform carrying unrelated items under its old name.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2014 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)