hotel.r52.ru was the site of the open joint-stock company "Hotel Complex 'Nizhegorodsky'"[1], a hotel in Nizhny Novgorod at 2 Zalomova Street[2]. The site lived on the r52.ru domain; judging by the footer credit, it was hosted there as well[2]. Snapshots of the home page survive in the web archive from February 2001[1] through August 2007[4]. The enterprise itself, as the home page stated, had "been operating since May 12, 1995"[1]. Across the surviving snapshots the site appears in three different guises, with the title changing twice: from "Hotel Complex 'Nizhegorodsky'" to "Nizhny Novgorod Hotel Complex" and then to "Hotel Nizhegorodskaya"[1][2][3].

First version: three pages about the hotel

In the snapshot from February 14, 2001, the site consists of three sections — "About the Hotel," "Our Services," "How to Find Us" — duplicated in the top menu and in the page's bottom line[1]. The enterprise named its core lines of business as "accommodating visitors to the city for temporary stays and providing services to guests" and "organizing public catering at enterprises"[1].

Guest services listed included rooms of four categories — single, double, semi-suite, and suite — a restaurant seating 250, a cafe, a parking lot, and the "Queen of Spades" club, which combined a bar, billiards, and a casino[1]. The footer carried a copyright notice, "© 2000 Hotel Complex 'NIZHEGORODSKY'. All rights reserved," followed by the line "Teamoty Brane Inc.," whose role the surviving text does not explain[1].

The 2002-2003 version: address, phone numbers, a table of services

By April 2, 2003, the site had been redesigned and renamed to "Nizhny Novgorod Hotel Complex." The home page described the hotel's location: "in the historic part of the city, in a safe, quiet district and, at the same time, just a few minutes' drive from downtown"; it also noted an observation platform nearby[2]. Among its strengths the page cited the restaurant, cafe, casino, level of staff training, and a "computerized booking system"[2].

Services were laid out in a table of fourteen items: refrigerator, bar, television, conference hall, parking, cafe, hairdresser, safe, telephone, security service, restaurant, minibar, satellite television, laundry[2]. Contact details were also given: postal code 603109, Nizhny Novgorod, 2 Zalomova Street; front desk and booking phone (8312) 30-53-87 and commercial department phone (8312) 30-50-40; email hotel@r52.ru[2]. The footer carried a copyright notice, "© 2002 Nizhny Novgorod Hotel Complex," with the contractors credited on separate lines: "Coding by Р52.РУ" and "Hosting by r52.ru"[2] — meaning both the site's construction and its hosting were handled by the same company, r52.ru, on whose domain it lived.

"Hotel Nizhegorodskaya": booking and an English version

By March 11, 2005, the site had acquired a third version, titled "Hotel Nizhegorodskaya." Only its navigation survives in the web archive: a language switch "Рус / Eng" and the sections "Home," "News," "Rooms and Rates," "Booking," "Guest Book," "Cafe, Restaurant," "Contacts"[3]. Judging by this set, the site had grown from a static business card into something more — with news, rates, and request handling — but the pages themselves are not present in the surviving text.

A snapshot from August 8, 2007, shows the same layout with a changed set of items: "Guest Book" and "Cafe, Restaurant" are gone, replaced by "Write to Us" and "Services"[4].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet, and closure

The site entered our sample of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet from the nn.ru directory: in the "Hotels" category (under "Tourism, Hotels, Boarding Houses" in the "Firms (Enterprises)" directory) it was listed as "Hotel Complex 'Nizhegorodsky'" with a description that repeated the hotel's own wording verbatim — "Accommodating visitors to the city for temporary stays and providing services to guests." In the rating column of Counter.nn.ru it carried the note "Rating: none": the site did not take part in the visitor-count rating, and the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating gives no figures for its audience. hotel.r52.ru is also absent from the final voting table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004, even though hotel sites did appear in it — "Hotel Tsentralny" (hotel-central.ru) and the "Boldino" hotel complex (boldino-hotel.com)[5].

The last surviving snapshot of the home page is dated August 2007[4]; there are no later versions of the site in the web archive, and at the time of our check the domain hotel.r52.ru was no longer in service. What became of the hotel complex itself after 2007, the materials available to us do not say.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)