gagaevcenter.ru is the website of a private cardiac surgery clinic in Nizhny Novgorod. In the earliest snapshots it is called the Nizhny Novgorod Cardiac Surgery Center[1]; by 2006 the home page appears under the name Nizhny Novgorod Cardiac Surgery Center (gagaevcenter.ru))))))))))))))))))))))))))", keeping the abbreviation NKHTs (НКХЦ) in the header[3]. The domain name is derived from the surname Gagaev: the site menu had a separate "Lead Surgeon" section, and the 2006 home page carried a block signed "Alexander Gagaev"[3]. The surviving home-page snapshots span 2003-2006[1][3].

A clinic of "a new type": the 2003-2004 site

The first surviving snapshot is dated September 1, 2003. At the time the site fit on a single address-style page headed "Nizhny Novgorod Cardiac Surgery Center: Home/About the Center." The text announced that "a medical institution of a new type has opened in N. Novgorod — a private cardiac surgery clinic" holding license 24-M No. 793076, and that the center "provides consultative and therapeutic care to adult patients suffering from heart disease"[1].

The clinic named its distinguishing features, as the home page put it, as "new principles of management and financing, unique equipment, bright and comfortable wards, and no months-long wait for examinations and surgery"[1]. A separate paragraph was devoted to equipment: American, German, Italian, Swiss, and Japanese apparatus, the Shiller stress-test system, the Jostra heart-lung machine, ultrasound equipment, and computerized Holter monitoring, which, according to the site, made it possible to detect ischemic heart disease at an early stage; the page closed with the line "The doors of our clinic and our hearts are always open to you!"[1]. The June 9, 2004 snapshot repeats the same text word for word: the home page went untouched for nine months[2].

"KorAll": pricing, news, and articles on heart disease

By the February 2, 2006 snapshot the site had been rebuilt into what it called a portal. The top menu read: "About the Center," "For Patients," "Heart Operations," "Articles," "Heart Disease," "Q&A," "Home," "Contacts"[3]. The side column expanded the "About the Center" section into the subsections "Specialists," "Lead Surgeon," "Why Choose Us?," "Photo Album," "Testimonials," "Articles," "For Shareholders," "Services," "Contacts"[3]. The utility bar carried "subscribe," "news," "price list," "write to us"[3].

Prices were placed right on the home page, in an "Attention!" block: "Diagnosis in 1 hour!," coronary angiography — 517 USD on the day of admission, stenting — 3,000-7,000 USD, and coronary artery bypass surgery — likewise 3,000-7,000 USD. The site specified that the cost of operations included a stay in a four-bed ward, meals, necessary medications, and disposable supplies; single, double, and four-bed wards of "European standard" were on offer[3].

The news column carried two entries. From October 22, 2005 — "3 Years of the KorAll Heart Surgery Center," meaning the center dated its work from October 22, 2002[3]. From December 2, 2005 — "New operating hours for the diagnostic department": from December 2005 it became possible to undergo cardiovascular diagnostics on Saturdays as well[3].

Most of the home page was given over to reference material. The "Heart Disease" section listed hypertension, heart failure, rheumatic heart disease, heart defects, heart attack, and ischemic heart disease[3]. The "Most-read articles on the portal" block featured the pieces "Heart Attack," "Heart Defects," and "Chronic Heart Failure"; below were notes on a heart-healthy diet and on chest pain[3]. Next to it was a "Those We Managed to Save" section with a testimonial signed "Vaske A.V.": "My heart works thanks to the staff of 'KorAll.' THANK YOU.," along with a link to the guestbook[3]. There was also a visitor poll running: "Do you support the ban on smoking in public places and offices?" with the options "Yes," "No," "Not yet decided"[3].

The page's service markup preserved the promotional practices of the era. Alongside "cardiology" and "angina," the keyword list deliberately included misspellings — "serdtse" rendered as "serce," "aritmiya" as "aretmiya," "gipertoniya" as "gipertaniya" — and the word "серце" typed in the Latin keyboard layout as "cthlwt"[3]. The home page code also still contained a handler for parsing visitors' search queries: it listed Aport, Rambler, Yandex, Mail.ru, KM.ru, Google, Yahoo, and the Belarusian Tut.by[3]. The page footer read: "2004 (C) OAO," with the project developed by OOO "Miross"[3].

Its place in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet

The site took part in the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day contest. In the "Best Corporate Site" category it was registered as entry No. 61 under the name "Nizhny Novgorod Cardiac Surgery Center" and received 8 votes by email and none by SMS[4]. That put it 31st out of 97 entries in the category: the category leader, the online store "Aprel Servis," had 159 email votes and 28 by SMS, while below the cardiac center in the standings came Avtobank-NIKoil, Nizhpoligraf, and a cable television provider[4]. Its very participation in the contest shows that by the mid-2000s the clinic was known and counted in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet on the same footing as telecom companies, banks, and stores.

The site does not appear in the surviving exports of the Counter.nn.ru ranking, on which the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating is based, so the 2004 vote remains the only measurable trace of its traffic.

How it closed

The last substantive home-page snapshot in the web archive is dated February 2, 2006[3]. The crawler kept visiting the address afterward — the last capture is from January 8, 2008[5] — but according to census data, from 2007 the domain carried only a parking placeholder rather than the clinic's site. A check made while writing this article found no site at gagaevcenter.ru: the domain is unregistered. Neither the clinic's address nor its phone number survives in the preserved home-page texts — contact details lived on a separate page, of which no snapshots exist in the archive.

Links

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2006 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Voting results, Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Web archive: last capture of the address, 2008 (archive)