himik.dzerzhinska.net was a fan site for the football club "Himik" of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, running since 2001 on a subdomain of dzerzhinska.net. The home page called itself the "Fan site of FC Himik Dzerzhinsk" and carried the signature "© 2001-03" with the contact address master@dzerzhinska.net[1]. In the directory of the Nizhny Novgorod portal nn.ru the site was listed under "Projects: Sports projects" as "Himik Dzerzhinsk - XuMpeakTuB" and was described as "a fan site of the Dzerzhinsk football club Sibur-Himik" featuring guestbook discussion and information about the team[2]. It was an amateur fan project, not the club's official site.

What the site looked like

The layout of the home page barely changed over the years. Across the top ran a text menu of ten items: "Home," "Ours," "Highlights," "Photo shoot," "Team," "Press," "Guestbook," "Chat," "Links," and a copyright mark; the same menu repeated at the bottom of the page[1]. In the header ran a presence counter — "Currently on the site: 2 people" in the June 2003 snapshot and "Currently on the site: 1 person" in the March 2005 snapshot[1][3]. A separate block offered a newsletter subscription: "The newsletter goes out regularly as news appears," as the home page stated; the subscriber counter showed 53 people in the summer of 2003 and 72 by December 2004[1][3].

The news feed was kept with a view count for each item: from 17 views for a fresh entry to 311 for the report of the coach's dismissal[1][3]. The right side of the page carried a calendar of upcoming rounds, a "Next match" line, a "Last match" line with the score, and a full league table. At the bottom the page honestly showed the edit date: "Updated: Sunday, 22-Jun-2003 23:58:24 MSD"[1].

What the site wrote about

Its content came down to the life of the Dzerzhinsk team, including its financial troubles. On March 13, 2003, the site ran an item titled "Himik denied funding. Dzerzhinsk football is finally dead," two weeks later — "Long live the KFK! There is now a prospect of seeing Himik on the football field in the 2003 season after all," and on April 4 — "Himik will take part in the MFS Privolzhye championship. The entry fee has been paid"[1].

The site then covered the season round by round. In the MFS "Privolzhye" cup, "Himik" lost twice to Vorsma's "Spartak-MIZ" — 0:3 away on May 9 and 0:6 at home on May 11[1]. In the table posted on the home page on June 22, 2003, "Himik" stood thirteenth among seventeen teams: 8 matches, 2 wins, 2 draws, 4 losses, goals 9:19, 8 points[1]. Home rounds were listed with the city — "Dzerzhinsk," away rounds with the names of Saratov, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Saransk, and Syzran[1]. In the autumn came entries titled "Sixth loss in a row" and "Himik's head coach dismissed"; in 2004 — "Vyksa and Pavlovo to face Himik again," "2004 MFS Privolzhye championship schedule approved," and "Himik opens the football season tomorrow in the village of Pyra"[3]. The last news item on the surviving home page is dated January 21, 2005, and the one before it, from December 20, 2004, was titled "Again unclear what will become of Dzerzhinsk's main team, Himik"[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In a snapshot of the nn.ru directory from May 22, 2002, sorted by rating, "Himik Dzerzhinsk" ranked first in the "Sports projects" section with a Counter.nn.ru score of 250.1 — above "Futbol-Khokkey — NN" (244.17) and "Bukmekera" (103.23); sites with a rating around one closed out the section[2]. The link from the rating led to the counter page numbered 1180[2]. In other words, this amateur fan site outranked every other sports project in the section by counter rating — a pattern typical of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the time, examined in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating. The site does not appear in the surviving results table for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2004 vote[4].

How it closed

The site's substantive life ends around the turn of 2004–2005: in the snapshot from March 6, 2005, the footer still shows the edit date "Updated: Monday, 20-Dec-2004 16:02:04 MSK," and the "Next match" line reads "Season over"[3]. By December 2009 the address served only a transitional line, "Click here to proceed"[5]. The last snapshot in the web archive is dated June 7, 2014[6]. Today the domain name himik.dzerzhinska.net no longer exists, and all that remains of the site is a set of archived snapshots and an entry in the nn.ru directory.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Sports projects" section, 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page snapshot, 2009 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Home page snapshot, 2014 (archive)