dznn.narod.ru — a "city site for the people of Dzerzhinsk," as it called itself: an amateur portal about Dzerzhinsk in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, hosted on the free hosting service Narod.Ru and listed in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet catalog nn.ru (the /rub/ section)[3]. The earliest surviving snapshot of the site dates from April 10, 2002, and the latest known census record captures it in October 2022 — meaning the project existed under this domain for two decades[3].

What the site looked like and what it offered

In the 2002 version, the homepage presented the site as a platform "for the people of Dzerzhinsk": "Write to us at dznn@narod.ru, call (8313) 293-692, suggest topics and sections," it read[1]. The menu included sections such as "City phone numbers," entertainment categories (logic games, Japanese crosswords, cartoons), civic topics (elections, "Oh, the roads!"), a "Work" block (job search, work abroad, telework), classified ads (real estate, services, "selling," "buying," "dating"), as well as original services: a Dzerzhinsk database, price lists, a medicine reference guide, a section for carriers, and computer literacy lessons. There was also a guestbook, a "Nostalgia. Looking for an old friend" section, humor sections, and a collection of links to local media and other Dzerzhinsk sites[1].

By the snapshot from March 30, 2022, the site looked noticeably simpler and had been moved to the uCoz platform ("Powered by uCoz technologies" — a caption at the bottom of the page)[2]. The contact phone number in the page text had been shortened to the local format "29-36-92" (the same number as in 2002, without the long-distance code), while the email address dznn@narod.ru remained unchanged. Among the sections that remained were questions, "voice of the people," "Oh, the roads!," and there was now a new "For businesses" block (supply and demand, data entry) and an "auto market" category among the classifieds. As the homepage put it, "Fellow countrymen! People of Dzerzhinsk! This site was made specially for you," and the author complained about a lack of sponsors and offered to place a banner "on the main street" of the site[2]. The page also gave lists of local newspapers ("Dzerzhinets," "Dzerzhinskie Novosti," "Dzerzhinskoye Vremya," "Oksky Bereg," "Zerkalo-plyus," "Petrovich," "Iz Ruk v Ruki," and others) and a selection of search engines and forums of the era[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the census card, the site is described as "a full phone directory, buying, selling, dating, jobs, web design" — that is how it was listed in the nn.ru catalog[3]. In the surviving Counter.nn.ru data and the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, no rating or vote count is recorded for dznn.narod.ru — this does not mean zero traffic or zero votes, only that the site is absent from the samples that have survived to us[3]. For more on how this sample is constructed and what it covers, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

How it closed

Where the site moved after it closed is not indicated in the census data: the domain's relocation field is empty[3]. The last known web archive snapshot recorded by the census is dated October 7, 2022; the domain's status in the card is marked as "dead"[3]. The last surviving text of the homepage (the snapshot from March 30, 2022) still presented the site as a living project: the author promised "a new version of this site" and asked readers to send advice and suggestions[2].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2022 (archive)
  3. dznn.narod.ru — Domain card in the census (nn.ru, last recorded 07.10.2022) (archive)