shernn.ru was the website of Shering-Express, a Nizhny Novgorod travel agency that operated from the early 2000s. The company's office was located at 603000, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostina Street, building 4, first floor, left wing, office 114[1]. The firm sold foreign and Russian tours, package deals to sanatoriums in Nizhny Novgorod Region, river cruises, and tickets through its own rail and air ticket counters. The site entered the Nizhny Novgorod Internet through the nn.ru directory, where it was described as the page of a firm offering "foreign holidays, excursion tours, sanatoriums of Nizhny Novgorod Region, tours around Russia, cruises, children's holidays."

What the home page looked like

The surviving snapshots of the home page date to September and October 2013 and match word for word[1][2]. The page title read "Shering-express:: tours around Russia, foreign tours"[1].

The page was divided into three top sections — "About the company," "Foreign tours," "Tours around Russia" — and a long side menu: sanatoriums and boarding houses, the Black Sea coast, holidays in Crimea, Abkhazia, children's summer camps, New Year and Christmas, a boarding-house photo gallery, sanatoriums of the Moscow Region and the Caucasian Mineral Waters, river cruises, tours to St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv, Belarus and the Golden Ring, rail and air ticket counters, information for travel agencies, contacts[1]. A separate block listed forty destination countries — from Australia and Andorra to South Korea[1].

Contacts were split by client type: "For individuals" — a multi-line number, (831) 462-1111, "For legal entities" — (831) 430-15-83 and 430-15-91, fax (831) 430-15-66, email shering@sandy.ru[1]. In a second contact block on the same page, a different multi-line number was given for individuals — (831) 436-11-11[1]. At the bottom of the page was the developer's credit: "Website created by IP3"[1].

What was offered to clients

The home page was dominated by tables of offers with departures from Nizhny Novgorod. Regular programs were listed for Turkey (daily, 4 to 15 days), Tunisia, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Greece[1]. As the home page stated, "hot deals from N. Novgorod" started "from 7,000 rubles"[1]: Turkey — from 7,000 rubles, Egypt — from 9,000, Greece — from 16,000, Tunisia and Israel — from 19,000, Cyprus — from 21,000, Croatia — from 24,500 rubles[1]. In the table of departures from Moscow were listed a sightseeing tour of the Czech Republic from 13,800 rubles, treatment in Karlovy Vary from 37,600, Italy from 12,000, France from 31,000, the Dominican Republic from 46,500 and Cuba from 49,600 rubles; the line "Shopping tours to Greece" carried an evidently erroneous price of "from 45 rubles"[1].

Besides the tables, the page featured a "Tour search," a "Personal account" and "Online booking instructions"[1]. Separate items covered trip-cancellation insurance, travel documents, real estate abroad, and a sea-cruise search with online booking[1].

The company's chronicle in the site's news feed

The news feed on the home page spanned 2006–2012 and serves as a chronicle of the firm itself. In May 2006 the company announced acceptance of payment by bank card and the option of a loan, and in November of that year a new online tour-booking system[1]. In April 2007 the firm took part in the third annual travel fair "Spring — Summer 2007" at the Shokolad shopping center[1]. In February 2008 OOO Shering-Express styled itself the general representative of the Israeli firm TRAVELLUX LTD, and in November 2008 the authorized agent of the tour operator Astravel in Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod Region[1].

In March 2010 the firm opened a rail and air ticket counter inside the Khoztovary store on Sovetskaya Square (Vaneyeva Street, 96), and later that month announced the opening of a new office[1]. Around the same time Shering-Express sponsored the program "Sakvoyazh" on the Volga television company, which covered the novelties of the spring-summer season[1]. The feed's last two entries are from February and March 2012: a 10 percent discount on package deals to the Avtomobilist sanatorium, and regular minibus transport for clients to the Volzhanka health resort complex[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and the site's fate

In the sample of the Counter.nn.ru ranking compiled for the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, the site shows a rating of 277; no votes for it were recorded in our data. In the results of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, neither the domain shernn.ru nor the name "Shering-Express" appears[3].

A web-archive crawl made for this census found 80 saved captures of the domain: the first dated December 9, 2002, the last January 23, 2026. In substance the site stopped much earlier: the news on the home page breaks off in March 2012, and the September and October 2013 snapshots already match word for word, meaning the page was no longer being updated[1][2]. By the time this census was compiled, the site at shernn.ru was no longer working.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (October snapshot) (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)