nordnn.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod travel agency "Nord" (North), which in its early versions signed itself "Nord-NN"[1]. The agency received clients in Nizhny Novgorod at 18/4 Torgovaya Street, office 9, by the "Skoba" stop[2]. Snapshots of the home page in the web archive cover 2003–2018: the first is dated 20 March 2003[1], and by the beginning of 2018 the address already opened onto somebody else's site[4].

The early version: a news feed and prices in dollars

The earliest surviving snapshot is from 20 March 2003. The page title listed everything the agency did: "Nord-NN Travel Agency : Nizhny Novgorod : Recreation, tourism, Excursions, Exotica, Business tours, Medical treatment, For children"[1]. The home page was arranged as a news feed with dates: entries of 5 December 2002, 21 January, 4 and 11 February, 26 February and 5 March 2003[1].

These entries reveal the range of offerings of the early 2000s. The agency announced the start of the Turkish season from 23 March and the prices for the Kremlin Palace 5* hotel, promising "a holiday on the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin, situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea"; it offered "All Inclusive in the UAE" at the Hilton Ras Al Khaimah 5* from 635 dollars; coach tours of the cities of Poland — Warsaw, Wieliczka with its salt mines, Kraków, Wrocław, Malbork — for 129 dollars; cruises to six ports in four countries (Spain, Italy, France, Tunisia) from 699 dollars plus airfare, and a 13-day "Greater Mediterranean" from 999 dollars with calls at Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Pisa with Florence, Athens, Ephesus, Istanbul and Venice; particular ships were named too — Golden Princess (14 and 26 May) and Grand Princess (17 May)[1]. A separate section, "Business Tours", carried the schedule of the largest industrial exhibitions of 2003[1]. Under the announcement of group coach excursions around the city, the region and the cities of Russia stood the telephone number 30-25-36 with the note "(Nataliya)"[1]. In 2003 the telephone numbers were printed in the old format: 30-25-36 and 30-73-66, with the code (8312)[1].

The site in 2013–2014

By 2013 the site was called "Nord Travel Company — Nizhny Novgorod", and the menu consisted of five items: "Home", "News", "Site search", "For agencies", "Contacts"[2]. The page carried the slogan "Around the world at any time of year!" and presented the agency as "one of the first travel companies of Nizhny Novgorod", with more than thirteen years on the market, and as the representative of the tour operators "Labirint" (Labyrinth) and "Nord"[2].

The destinations were given as a list: "Departures from N. Novgorod", "Fur Tours" (shopping trips for fur coats) marked "0 c.u. (free)", beach holidays, sightseeing tours, "Russia, Abkhazia, Crimea", the Nizhny Novgorod Region on a line of its own, sea and river cruises, exotic destinations, honeymoon travel, ski tours[2]. The contact telephone numbers were by then printed with the new code: 8(831)4169528 and (831)4169526[2]; in the 2014 version the same numbers stood in the form "(831) 4-169-526 / 4-169-528"[3]. The developer's credit read "Design by p01ar studio"[2].

The snapshot of 17 May 2014 shows an already rebuilt site: the heading "'Nord' Travel Agency — Welcome!", a menu of seven items ("Home", "Departures from N. Novgorod", "Exclusive offers from partners", "For agencies", "Special offers", "Services", "Contacts") and the forms "Contact us" and "Tour selection request"[3]. Under the heading "Departures from Nizhny Novgorod" 22 countries were listed — from Albania and Bulgaria to Croatia, Montenegro and the Czech Republic[3]. The "Featured hotels" block held three addresses with explanations: ALDEMAR ROYAL MARE in Hersonissos on Crete (5*, "for discerning tourists"), the Bulgarian CLUB SALUT!-MOONLIGHT in Sveti Vlas, four kilometres from Sunny Beach (5*, 92 rooms, 5 apartments and 8 studios, opened in May 2013), and NEW FAMAGUSTA in Ayia Napa, Cyprus (3*)[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet

The site belonged to that layer of Nizhny Novgorod Internet which rested on local counters and regional contests. The markup of the 2013 home page kept a trace of a counter button — the line "counter.nn.ru logo"[2]; as for placings in the Counter.nn.ru rating itself, Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating records none for the site. At Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2004 the agency was entered in the "Best corporate website" category and received 6 votes there by e-mail and not a single one by SMS — while the leader of the category, the computer firm "Aprel Servis" (April Service), collected 159 and 28 votes respectively[5]. It was through the lists of that vote that the site entered the census of dead Nizhny Novgorod websites.

It worked not only for clients: the "For agencies" section stayed in the menu both in 2013 and in 2014[2][3], and the agency put its tour-operator representation right on the home page[2].

How it closed

The snapshots showing the travel agency's own site break off in our selection on 17 May 2014[3]. On 22 January 2018 the web archive recorded an entirely different site at nordnn.ru: a template catalogue of intimate services, in whose title someone else's search query was appended to the domain name and whose text was about Moscow and St Petersburg — it had nothing to do either with tourism or with Nizhny Novgorod[4]. This is the usual end of an abandoned domain: a freed-up name with an accumulated history of links is picked up for a doorway page. The last snapshot of the address in the web archive is dated 13 November 2018; in all the archive holds about seven dozen copies. In the register of the archival study the domain is marked as non-existent, and the register records no move of the agency to another address.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2014 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Domain contents, 2018 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)