chestno.nnov.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Public Council "Honest Elections" (chestnye vybory), a public body created in the summer of 2001 ahead of the Nizhny Novgorod Region gubernatorial election[1]. The Council brought together representatives of the Mediasoyuz (Media Union), candidates for governor, regional media outlets, parties and movements, and promised to record violations of election law and journalistic ethics during the campaign[1]. The site ran a feed of such violations from June 2001; it was made by the internet company "Asabana", and the copyright notice on the home page was dated 2001[1]. In the Nizhny Novgorod Internet the address held on until the mid-2000s: by February 2004 it was already serving a web server test page[3].

The Council and its declaration

The founding meeting of the Public Council took place on Thursday, 7 June 2001; according to the home page, it was attended by candidates and representatives of candidates for governor, the heads of leading regional publications, representatives of the Mediasoyuz board, journalists and lawyers[1]. The founding declaration was posted on the home page in full. The idea behind the venture was formulated as follows: "We are creating a public body whose activity is meant to make the course of the election as open and transparent as possible"[1]. A separate paragraph acknowledged that the council was not able to prevent violations: "If we cannot stop all the pre-election lies, then we will speak about them out loud and clearly"[1].

By the autumn of 2002 the home page had published the Council's membership. From the Volga Federal District branch of the Mediasoyuz the Council included A. B. Bludyshev (chairman of the board), V. A. Torin (deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper Nizhegorodskiye Novosti), V. V. Lapyrin (editor-in-chief of the newspaper Birzha), A. P. Chugunov (editor-in-chief of the newspaper Nizhegorodsky Rabochy); from the candidates for governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region — D. P. Birman, V. E. Bulavinov, V. V. Gryadasov, I. N. Karnilin, S. A. Klementyev, I. P. Sklyarov, G. M. Khodyrev[2].

Meetings were held roughly once a week: on 21 and 28 June 2001[2]. Matters did not stop at publications: following the meeting of 21 June the Council filed two complaints with the regional election commission — over violations of election law by media outlets and against candidate Savelyev over samples of campaign material[2].

What the site looked like

The top menu consisted of four sections: "HONEST ELECTIONS", "HONEST NEWS", "WORKSHOP", "HONEST ANSWERS"[1]. The home page was occupied by a feed with the sections "COUNCIL", "VIOLATIONS" and "HEADQUARTERS": council meetings, analyses of publications, and reports on candidate registration[1]. In the "HEADQUARTERS" section, for the first days of June 2001, it was reported that the regional election commission had registered State Duma deputy Dmitry Savelyev, general director of ZAO "Resursy — NN" Vladimir Gryadasov, and director of the municipal unitary enterprise "Nizhegorodgorsvet" Vladimir Koterev[1].

On the side there was a "SUBMIT INFORMATION" form with the fields "Message", "Your name", "E-mail (phone)": through it readers were invited to report violations to the Council[1]. Below was a "LATEST QUESTION" block: on 5 June 2001 a reader signing as Anton asked "when the candidates for governor will stop making false promises", and received a promise of an answer soon[1]. In the September 2002 snapshot the same spot already shows substantive correspondence — asked about lawsuits, the Council answered with a list of complaints filed with the election commission — and a "FORUM" block had been added[2]. There was also an "ADVERTISING" block on the page[1].

The violations feed

The main content consisted of short breakdowns of specific publications, naming the outlet, issue number and date. Over June 2001 the feed covered Leninskaya Smena and Leninskaya Smena Plus, Nizhegorodskaya Pravda, Versiya dlya Nizhnego Novgoroda, Guberniya, Gorod i Gorozhane, Novaya Gazeta v Nizhnem[1][2]. Television was analysed too: the "Posleslovie" ("Afterword") programme of the TV company Volga, and the "Kstati…" ("By the Way…") and "Nochnoy Polyot" ("Night Flight") programmes on Seti NN[2]. The wording was almost always the same: a piece of material "shows signs of campaigning" for or against a specific registered candidate[1]. The tone of Leninskaya Smena Plus's publications was described as "insulting, brazen, injuring the honour, dignity and business reputation" of candidates V. Bulavinov and I. Sklyarov[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and how it closed

The site was listed in the nn.ru directory with the description "Nizhny Novgorod Region Public Council 'Honest Elections'". It does not appear in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating, so there is no basis for judging its traffic; see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating. The domain does not appear in the results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004[4] — by December 2004 the site no longer existed.

The resource turned out to be strictly tied to the campaign: the most recent entry in the feed is dated 29 June 2001, and the snapshot from 11 September 2002 shows the same feed without a single new message — the site had gone unupdated for over a year[2]. By 1 February 2004 the address was already serving the standard web server stub — "Test Page for Apache Installation", the default placeholder page of Russian Apache, inviting the administrator to replace it with real content[3]. The last snapshot of the domain in the web archive is dated 28 November 2005.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)