"Blog of Dzerzhinsk" (blogdzer.ru) launched on September 12, 2011, with a brief post reading "Hello, Dzerzhinsk!" and a clearly stated principle: not a city portal, not a business directory, and not a classifieds board, but an open platform whose content would be created by the residents themselves [1][2]. The most discussed post in the blog's entire history was an examination of the myth of Dzerzhinsk as "one of the dirtiest cities in the world" — it drew 199 reader comments [3].

The first open blog

"Today, September 12, 2011, the open Dzerzhinsk blog begins its work," read the first entry; readers were immediately invited to register and write themselves — "useful tips, recommendations, warnings, responses to local... events" [1]. The "About the Blog" page spelled out separately what the resource was NOT: "in no way does it claim to be a city news portal, a guide-directory of Dzerzhinsk businesses and organizations, or a private classifieds board" — the editors felt the city already had plenty of those [2].

By autumn 2012, the site had around twenty registered authors; the most prolific was "Admin" himself — 16 articles — followed by "Simo4ko" with 9 [4]. By 2017, the blog had grown into a full-fledged portal with sections including "Food in Dzerzhinsk," "Real Estate in Dzerzhinsk," "Internet in Dzerzhinsk," "Beware of Scammers," "Useful City Maps," and others [5].

"Dzerzhinsk Is Not the Dirtiest City in Russia"

An analysis of a foreign ranking became the blog's second post — and its most discussed in the entire history of the blog. The Blacksmith Institute had, some years earlier, included Dzerzhinsk in its list of the ten most polluted cities in the world; the blog noted that the institute "resembles a ratings agency more than anything else," cited Rosstat data from 2010 (Dzerzhinsk does not even appear on the list of Russia's 56 most polluted cities), and pointed to the recent visit of President Dmitry Medvedev to the city as an occasion for addressing its environmental problems [3].

At the same time, the author did not deny the real problems, naming them plainly: the "The White Sea" — a sludge pond belonging to Sibur-Neftekhim JSC — and the "Black Hole" — the Igumnovo landfill for municipal solid waste [3]. The post received 199 responses — a rare result for a small local blog.

The Practical Life of the City

The second blog post, published on September 22, 2011, examined the "battle of internet providers" in the city: the author recalled how just five to seven years earlier he had bought a "Russia-Online" (ROL) internet card for 300 rubles for 10 hours at 40 kbit/s, whereas by 2011 Dzerzhinsk already saw competition between Rostelecom, Beeline, Stream (MTS), and newcomer Dom.ru offering "TV + internet for 333 rubles" [6].

Among other materials were a review of the photo-book album "Dzerzhinsk. City. History. People" [7], a warning "Beware: ZEPTER scammers in Dzerzhinsk" about the then-widespread network selling of cookware [5], the practical guide "How to sell an apartment in Dzerzhinsk quickly" [2], and a colorful review of a pelmeni café on Gaydara Street — including the complaint "there's no bread, but they have flatbreads" [8]. In May 2012, a reader by the name Anna reported that the rival portal "Your City Dzerzhinsk" had stopped loading — a sign that Dzerzhinsk had no shortage of local internet projects at the time, and not all of them outlasted even the "Dzerzhinsk Blog" itself [9].

Fate of the site

Actual entries in the archive can be traced at least until June 2017, when the site appeared to be a fully developed city portal with a dozen sections [5]. By September of that same year the homepage had gone blank, and by December 2017 the address had been taken over by a foreign dating site, "Dating for mature singles" — the typical fate of an abandoned Runet domain [10][11].

Main page by year

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Hello, Dzerzhinsk!" — first blog post, snapshot dated September 27, 2014 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "About the Blog" — resource positioning, snapshot dated January 13, 2012 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "The Dirtiest Cities in Russia and the World, or 'Dzerzhinsk Is Not the Dirtiest City in Russia'", snapshot dated January 13, 2012 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Our Authors" with article and comment counters, snapshot dated October 15, 2012 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Web Archive — blogdzer.ru home page with full list of categories, snapshot dated June 2, 2017 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "The Internet in Dzerzhinsk, or the Battle of the Internet Providers", snapshot saved December 22, 2016 (post dated September 22, 2011) (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "A Book About Dzerzhinsk", snapshot dated October 16, 2016 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "The Dumpling Café on Gaydara Street... Dzerzhinsk", snapshot dated November 28, 2012 (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "The Portal 'Your City Dzerzhinsk' Is Unavailable", snapshot dated May 8, 2012 (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — Web Archive — blogdzer.ru home page, snapshot dated September 19, 2017 — page is already blank (archive)
  11. web.archive.org — Web Archive — blogdzer.ru home page, snapshot dated December 10, 2017 — dating site (archive)