"Birzha" — a Nizhny Novgorod publishing house that grew up around the business weekly Birzha (business weekly)". From the early 1990s it published a cluster of specialized newspapers under the "Birzha Plus" brand, later launched the business portal birzha.ru, and in the 2010s was one of the co-founders of the Nizhny Novgorod Expert Club. The print edition survived until December 2017, the website until mid-2019[3][5].

Publication cluster

The cornerstone of the house was the weekly "Birzha," published since 1991 and billing itself as "the weekly of Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneurs"[1]. From 1992 it was joined by the information and advertising agency "Birzha Plus," which produced thematic newspapers: Birzha Plus Auto", "Birzha Plus My Home," "Birzha Plus Career," "Birzha Plus Finance," "Birzha Plus Trading Row," and "Internet Pilot."

This was the model for almost all business press of the period: one flagship paper for entrepreneurs surrounded by advertising-and-topic supplements, each with its own audience — motorists, developers, job-seekers. The entire family was headed from 1991 by editor Lapyrin Vladimir Viktorovich.

What they covered

Researchers of the Nizhny Novgorod business press noted that "Birzha" devoted an unusually large share of coverage to social issues for a business publication[1]. In the mid-2000s the paper ran a long-running series called "Zotikov's School" — the story of Sokolsky District entrepreneur Dmitry Zotikov, used as a case study of how small business actually lives; the authors were Lapyrin and Aleksandr Kazansky[1].

From the same period — the topics of 2007: corruption among local authorities, a dispute between the city administration and owners of outdoor cafés, and a confrontation with entrepreneurs trading in the underpass near the Moscow Railway Station[1]. The tone was not trade-journal but civic: the paper examined not markets but the relationship between business and power.

Birzha Dobra

A separate chapter of the house was the social project "Country of the Non-Deaf" — the newspaper and website published job vacancies for people with hearing impairments and invited Nizhny Novgorod companies to submit suitable openings. The regional state employment service joined the project[3].

The project's stated aim was simple: to help socially integrate people with hearing disabilities. In addition to the vacancy listings, the editorial team produced video content and guides on which higher-education programmes a hearing-impaired applicant could enter[3].

Change of ownership and the portal

In 2009 the publishing house was acquired and relaunched by entrepreneur Ilya Osipov — founder of the Nizhny Novgorod portal NN.ru[2]. In 2010 the site birzha.ru was launched, consolidating material from all the house's newspapers, while the "Birzha Plus" range had its own address, birzhaplus.ru.

By the late 2010s the publication was operating under a different legal entity: the portal's imprint read LLC "Publishing House 'Delovaya Praktika'," and the registration certificate for the online media outlet "Birzha.Ru — website of Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneurs" had been issued on 27 July 2016[4]. Anna Chapygina was listed as director of the "Birzha" network and Oksana Nikolaychuk as editor-in-chief of the portal[4].

Discussion platform

In the 2010s the house became one of the initiators of the Nizhny Novgorod Expert Club — a round table whose transcripts were published in full. The club's moderator was Lapyrin, by that time chairman of the house's editorial board, while the organizing committee included publishing house general director Ivan Yudintsev[5].

On 28 June 2016 "Birzha" marked its twenty-fifth anniversary. The evening was attended by Nikolay Pugin, president of GAZ JSC, Gennadiy Ryabov, honorary consul of France, sociologist Andrey Iudin, and former city administration head Dmitry Bednyakov; Lapyrin was introduced as editor-in-chief of the "Birzha" publishing house[6].

How it ended

By the end of its existence the paper was no longer a weekly: according to its own 2017 rate card it was published around the twentieth of each month, in a print run of five thousand copies, across forty-eight pages in A3 format, and distributed via a targeted mailing list of four thousand addresses[7].

The last issue to appear on the website was No. 13-14 (1271–1272), dated 5 December 2017. The portal birzha.ru continued to be updated until spring 2019; the most recent archived snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated 12 May 2019, and from January 2020 the address showed a notice that the domain was for sale[3][5].

Sources

  1. relga.ru — Relga — Business Press of Nizhny Novgorod Region
  2. web.archive.org — Forbes — Ilya Osipov (archived profile) (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Web Archive — birzha.ru, snapshot 12 May 2019 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Web Archive — birzha.ru, contacts page (archive)
  5. mediastrikehall.nnov.org — Media Strike Hall — Nizhny Novgorod Expert Club
  6. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Nizhny Novgorod newspaper "Birzha" celebrates its 25th anniversary on 28 June
  7. web.archive.org — Web Archive — birzha.ru, page for advertisers (archive)