gar-ptica.by.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod travel agency "Zhar-Ptitsa Center" (Firebird Center), which operated at Vedenyapina St. 7/9 (the "Olimpiets" store, left wing) in Nizhny Novgorod, with phone/fax (8312) 54-01-44 and pager 30-30-00, subscriber "Zhar-Ptitsa"[1]. The site was listed in the nn.ru directory (the /rub/ section)[1], and its pages were preserved by the web archive from April 2002 to March 2007[1][4].

What the site looked like and what it offered

The earliest version of the page, captured in 2002, was quite simple: a message to visitors about "why people travel," thanks to regular customers and an invitation to "continue this good tradition" on new trips, a feedback form (name, e-mail, comments), and the e-mail address gar-ptica@mail.nnov.ru; a signature at the bottom of the page credited the designer — "Design by Isaak Lon, 2002"[1].

By August 2003 the site had grown considerably: a guestbook had appeared, and the menu led to dozens of destinations — holidays abroad, children's holidays in Croatia, the island of Corfu, wedding tours, the "wine route of France," Cyprus, Malta, river cruises, bus tours around Europe with a departure schedule, air tours "Great Italy" and "Along Italy's Golden Ring," as well as domestic destinations — resorts in Gelendzhik, Crimea, Sochi, and the "Chkalovsky" hotel in St. Petersburg, as the home page reported[2].

In the summer of 2004 the site added a news block with information relevant to the travel agency's clients: from 25 September 2003 a visa regime was being introduced between Russia and Poland, from 1 July 2003 travel documents for Italy required traveler's checks instead of currency-purchase certificates, and from 21 May 2003 the Norwegian consulate additionally required a certificate from the applicant's workplace stating their salary, as the home page reported[3]. The same snapshot also separately advertised excursions around the Nizhny Novgorod region — to Gorodets, Boldino (the A. S. Pushkin estate museum), and Suzdal, priced from 170 to 300 rubles, as well as summer children's camps in Slovakia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Malta, Hungary, and the Czech Republic[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site was listed in the nn.ru directory under the tourism section[1]. In the surviving Counter.nn.ru samples, no rating or traffic data for gar-ptica.by.ru has been recorded — this means the data is absent from the sample, not that the site had zero traffic. According to the same data, no votes for the site have been recorded in our materials for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day. The site's place in the overall picture of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of those years therefore cannot be judged by numerical indicators — only by the content of the snapshots themselves.

How it closed

The last recorded snapshot of the domain, dated 25 March 2007, shows an empty "Index of /" hosting directory listing marked "Hosting BY.RU" instead of the travel site — the site's content had disappeared by that time[4]. Available data suggest the domain may later have been used by another owner: the archive contains a page titled "www.gar-ptica.by.ru/" with no trace of the travel agency's former content[4]. The exact fate of the domain after 2007 cannot be established from the available materials — the last web-archive snapshot is dated 25 March 2007.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Last snapshot, 2007 (archive)