National Unified Realtor Network (NERS.ru) — a listings database for real estate, a directory of agencies and a professional forum for realtors, which operated at least from May 2004[1] until January 2025[6]. The project was not a local one: its databases covered the regions of Russia, Ukraine and countries abroad[2], yet its Nizhny Novgorod trace is a distinct one. The site took part in the voting of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day of 2004 in the "Most Useful Site" category[5]; in the earliest surviving snapshot Nizhny Novgorod Region stands third in the list of regions, immediately after Moscow and Moscow Region and ahead of the alphabetical order[1], while the lines "Real Estate of Nizhny Novgorod" and "New Buildings of Nizhny Novgorod" held their place in the databases menu on a par with the Moscow ones both in 2012 and in 2013[2][3].

What the site was like

The snapshot of 24 May 2004 caught the network at its very beginning. The home page was titled "NERS.RU — National Unified Realtor Network" and offered to set up a "Personal Office" with the sections "New Listings", "Favourites", "Post a Listing", "My Listings", "Realtor Mailing List", "Contact Information" and "Subscription"; separate items were "List of Regions", "National Forum" and "Regional Forum"[1]. The site's own counters on the page showed modest numbers: "number of objects 815", "number of visitors 66"[1]. The design was larger than the actual figures: as the home page put it, "NERS.ru — 89 regional sites, several thousand settlements", and "each of them has its own database — 7 sections and more than 40 subsections"[1]. Visitors were urged there not to leaf through the results by hand: "Don't search! SUBSCRIBE your Personal Office to new listings"[1].

Heyday: forum, blogs, directory

By 2012 the site had grown into a portal with the top menu "NERS — Russia — Ukraine — Abroad — Forum — Blogs — News — Organizations — Mortgage — Rating — Encyclopedia"[2]. The databases were split into three circuits — Russia, Ukraine and abroad. The Russian and the Ukrainian one had the same eight sections: flats, rooms, houses and cottages, new buildings, commercial property, land plots, ready-made businesses and garages; the foreign one had the same, except garages[2].

The growth over the fifteen months between the snapshots is visible in the counters on the home page. On 3 May 2012 there were 57,801 flats across Russia, and on 7 August 2013 — 169,349; houses and cottages, 13,706 against 36,715; land plots, 11,118 against 21,197[2][3]. Over the same period the forum rose from 439,649 posts in 18,115 threads to 627,844 posts in 23,120 threads, the blogs from 590 entries and 1,808 comments to 870 entries and 2,554 comments, and the "directory of realtors, real estate agencies and other real estate organizations" from 2,754 to 3,555 organizations[2][3]. The news feed was kept in sections with counters of their own; in 2012 the largest was "Digest of real estate market news" (9,371 items), followed by "Analytics and forecasts" (1,403), "Mortgage and cooperation" (1,367), "Real Estate Abroad" (1,133), "Your Own Business" (1,068), "Realtor technologies" (819), "Scandals and intrigues" (345)[2]. Mobile versions were running for Russia, Ukraine, abroad, the forum and the news[2].

The copyright line changed between the two snapshots as well. In 2012 the footer read "All rights belong to OOO 'Natsionalnye Seti' (National Networks)" and "Copyright © 2004-2012 NERS.ru", and in 2013 it read simply "All rights belong to NERS.ru", "Copyright © 2004-2013 NERS.ru"[2][3]. At the same time the "Real Estate Encyclopedia", listed a year earlier, disappeared from the menu and from the footer[2][3].

The Nizhny Novgorod trace and a place in the local internet

NERS.ru took part in the voting of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day of 2004 — the competition was a regional one, and appearing in its table by itself means that the site was considered a Nizhny Novgorod site[5]. In the "Most Useful Site" category it was given 11 votes by e-mail and not a single one by SMS: in the category list, sorted by the number of letters, it is twenty-first out of forty-eight — between the "Islamic Information Channel" (14 letters) and the "Business Monitoring Agency" (9). First place in the same category went to the "Nizhny Novgorod Auto Forum" with 212 letters[5]. In the surviving cross-sections of the Counter.nn.ru rating for 2000, examined in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, the site does not appear: its first snapshot in the web archive is dated May 2004[1].

Nizhny Novgorod kept a prominent place on the network later as well. In the "Databases" block in the footer of 2012 and 2013, of all the cities in the country only Moscow, the Moscow area and Nizhny are named on separate lines: "Real Estate of Nizhny Novgorod" and "New Buildings of Nizhny Novgorod"[2][3]. In 2013 the link "Real Estate of Nizhny Novgorod" stood on the home page itself as well, above the forum[3]; it was still on the home page in 2020, between the forum and the news feed[4]. Among the blog headlines of 2012 there is an entry "Thanks to Nizhny Novgorod and Irkutsk!"[2].

In the snapshot of 24 January 2020, the search form has the cities and districts of a single region expanded — Nizhny Novgorod Region. The list of cities holds Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Balakhna, Bogorodsk, Bor, Vetluga, Vyksa, Dalnee Konstantinovo, Dzerzhinsk, Diveevo, Zelyony Gorod, Kstovo, Kulebaki, Pavlovo, Sarov, Semyonov, Chkalovsk, Shakhunya; twenty-six districts of the region, from Arzamassky to Shakhunsky; eight districts of the city — Avtozavodsky, Kanavinsky, Leninsky, Moskovsky, Nizhegorodsky, Prioksky, Sovetsky, Sormovsky; and the "Metro station" field[4]. Listings for Nizhny Novgorod Region, meanwhile, numbered 2,067 — against 61,726 for Moscow and 62,580 for Moscow Region[4].

How it closed

In January 2020 the site was still alive: it worked over https, and the forum was showing posts from that same day — the latest replies are dated 24 January, 19:51[4]. By then, however, the top menu had shrunk to "Russia — Ukraine — Abroad — Forum — News — Realtors — Personal Account": the items "NERS", "Blogs", "Mortgage" and "Rating" had gone, and "Organizations" had been replaced by "Realtors"[4]. Of the agency directory, four lines were left on the home page, and the organizations counter was no longer beside it[4].

The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive is dated 8 January 2025; the text of that snapshot cannot be read — instead of a page, a binary stream ended up in our inventory, and the title is empty[6]. A probe of the domain, made while the inventory was being compiled, found no live page: the site is marked as dead, and no redirect to another address has been recorded. Its lifespan by the snapshots is 2004–2025, twenty-one years: for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet a rare span, though not a unique one — of the 89 participants of the 2004 voting that made it into our inventory, 17 sites lasted as long or longer.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2012 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2020 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting, 2004 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Last snapshot of the home page, 2025 (archive)