turist.r52.ru was the site of Nizhny Novgorod tour operator ZAO "Turist" ("Tourist"), which operated in the r52.ru zone. The company was located at 603001, Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, 9a, 3rd floor, and held six city phone lines with the 831 area code — 430-26-99, 430-41-14, 430-49-00, 430-27-47, 430-49-94, 433-97-84[1]. The first Wayback Machine snapshot of the home page is dated 28 October 2003, the last — 28 December 2019[5]. The site entered our register from the nn.ru directory's classification, where the firm was described as an operator of bus excursions around Nizhny Novgorod and the region, river and sea cruises, rest and treatment trips within Russia, and tours abroad (see Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating).

What the site looked like

The home page was arranged as a two-part showcase with questions in place of section headings: "Going abroad?" and "Or within Russia?"[1]. The foreign-travel column listed "Hot deals," "Flying from Nizhny Novgorod," seaside holidays, sightseeing tours, exotic destinations, bus tours around Europe, children's holidays, treatment abroad, study trips, ski tours, event tours, exhibitions and conferences, sea cruises, and tours to Belarus[1]. The Russia column was pointedly local: almost every item carried a note about departure or group assembly in Nizhny Novgorod — "Sightseeing tours departing from N. Novgorod," "2015 holiday in Krasnodar Krai, SOCHI, departing from NIZHNY NOVGOROD," holidays in Crimea and Abkhazia, bus tours to the south, trips along the Golden Ring, river cruises, rest and treatment within Russia, holidays in Nizhny Novgorod Region[1]. A separate block covered "Tours on credit with ZAO Credit Europe Bank" and card payment acceptance[2].

The right-hand side of the page carried a "What's new…" feed with dates and prices, which shows clearly what the firm was selling in a given month. In February 2015 it featured Nizhny Novgorod–Simferopol–Nizhny Novgorod flights "from 11,000 rubles" and the start of sales for vouchers to the children's health resort "Morskaya Zvezda" ("Sea Star") in the village of Lermontovo, with an organized departure from Nizhny Novgorod[1]. In April 2015 — Cyprus with departure from Nizhny Novgorod "from 22,000 rubles," Turkey for the May holidays "from 20,000 rubles," and a "Eurovision Tour: Weekend in Vienna" priced "from 18,946 rubles"[2]. In 2016 — Prague from Nizhny Novgorod, May holidays in Belarus "from 12,000 rubles," and treatment tours to Sochi sanatoriums from 25,550 rubles[3]. In 2017 the feed was taken up with children's holidays: spots for the first shift at the "Morskaya Zvezda" sanatorium and two vouchers to the "Dzerzhinets" camp at 40,000 rubles each[4]. By 2016 a built-in tour search had been added to the page — the snapshot caught it at the "Loading tour search module…" stage[3].

Receiving visitors in Nizhny Novgorod

The third menu block was titled "Or are you coming to us?" and addressed incoming visitors: "Receiving visitors in Nizhny Novgorod," "Excursions we offer," "Tour guide courses," "Weekend routes. Schedule and prices," "Offers for school groups"[1]. In February 2015 the same block also carried a package weekend tour with the quotation-title "I will tell of the city of stone and the blue of the Semyonov forests…" and "Maslenitsa Merrymaking in Sartakovo"[1]. In 2017, as the home page reported, the firm introduced an excursion titled "Starring — Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky)," which "reveals the role of Nizhny Novgorod in the cinematic history of Russia" and includes film location sites; the same item dates the premiere to 16 February 2016[4]. By then the tour guide courses on the site were listed under "ANO Turist"[4].

At the bottom of the page the firm listed its awards: winner of the Nizhny Novgorod Region governor's prize competition "Leaders of Nizhny Novgorod's Tourism Industry" for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006–2007, 2008–2009, 2010, and 2011 in the "best domestic sightseeing tour operator" category, and for 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016 in the "best cultural and sightseeing tour operator" category; a special prize "for the best project dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Victory" was also mentioned separately[4]. The site also gave its registration number in the State Unified Register of Tour Operators: VNT-010566 in 2015[1], and, in the 2016 and 2017 snapshots, VNT-014723[3]. The firm's email addresses sat on a Nizhny Novgorod provider domain: tyrist@mts-nn.ru and turistnn@mts-nn.ru[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site was a typical representative of the "corporate" layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: not a media outlet or a community, but the storefront of a working company that had stood at the same address in the r52.ru zone for decades. ZAO "Turist" does not appear in the final results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote — the tourism companies listed there are "ROSINKA" and "Nord"[6]. The site also does not appear in the surviving Counter.nn.ru counter samples we hold: we have no data on its traffic.

How it closed

The Wayback Machine preserved 80 captures of the address; the last snapshot of the home page is dated 28 December 2019[5]. By the time of our survey the turist.r52.ru domain was no longer being served, and our records contain no information about the site moving to another address. The full-text home page snapshots we hold cover the period from February 2015 to April 2017.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, February 2015 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, May 2015 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2016 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2017 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)