Prigorod Life (prigorodlife.ru) — an online publication about country living, registered with Roskomnadzor, which from 2013 to 2018 was run out of Nizhny Novgorod by an editorial team led by Mikhail Isakov [1][2]. The publication covered affordable rural housing and low-rise construction across Russia, but its most vivid writing was rooted in Nizhny Novgorod: a talking six-meter alien in the courtyard of a new apartment block, wry commentary on public hearings about a high-speed rail line, a long-form history of the bridge in Podnove[3][4][5].

About the Project

The earliest month recorded in the blog archive is March 2013; that same month, the static pages "About the Project" and "Contacts" were written [1][2]. The publication's mission was stated in elevated language: "The times have transformed the way modern people live, placing new values at the forefront: health, family, peace of mind, and confidence" — and it promised to explore how and why people choose life outside the city [2].

The project's director listed on the site was Mikhail Isakov; Petr Kuznetsov and Natalya Rezontova were responsible for advertising and promotion, and the editorial office telephone number was 411-11-32 [1]. The main Nizhny Novgorod reports were bylined by Sergey Dresvyannikov, while some texts were written by Isakov himself [3][4][5]. The publication was registered as an online media outlet: the footers of articles from 2013–2014 carry the Roskomnadzor registration certificate number EL № FS77-53260 [4][6].

The advertising department's email address (kuznetsovpa@vu.nn.ru) pointed to a service subdomain of vu.nn.ru — the same domain that in 2013 hosted a CRM system listing the plots and prices for the "Usadba Kamenki" development by Volzhskaya Usadba LLC [7][8].

Comments on posts were handled by the external Disqus service, and in the footers of 2013 pages, alongside the standard line "Hyperlink required when copying," there appeared a stray "generic viagra" link — a telltale sign of the automated hacking typical of WordPress sites of that era [1][6].

Nizhny Novgorod Stories

In August 2013, the publication covered the public hearings on the high-speed rail project "Moscow–Kazan–Yekaterinburg" held in the chamber of the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma — complete with a presidium, representatives of district public councils, and "pleasant aunties who clearly knew one another" [3].

In November 2013, Prigorod Life reported how residents of the new "Gagarinskie Vysoty" development in Prioksky District acquired a six-metre anti-vandal sculpture as the courtyard's centrepiece — an alien from the planet Chumaroza, a variation on Gromozeka from The Mystery of the Third Planet, forged by St. Petersburg craftsman Sergey Melnikov on commission from the company Oikumena; the regional Minister of Construction Vladimir Chelomin attended the unveiling, and the publication cited the developer's quote with a reference to "Vremya N" [4].

Among other Nizhny Novgorod news from June 2013: the opening of a real estate and cadastral works department at the Region's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the sale of a large plot for economy-class housing near Selektsiya Settlement in Kstovsky District [2].

In April 2014, a piece appeared on Mayor Oleg Sorokin's plans to revive by 2015 the open-air bandshell "Rakushka" in Alexandrovsky Garden — the venue where the Gorky Philharmonic symphony orchestra performed under Mstislav Rostropovich from 1958 to 1991 [9]. In the autumn of the same year came a detailed examination of the stalled funding for the bridge at Podnove: the estimated cost had risen from 30 to 80 billion roubles since 2007, and Vnesheconombank had requested additional guarantees from the Region [5].

Developer advertising

In autumn 2014 and again in January 2015, the site ran a promotion called "A Home for 300 Roubles" from the Usadba Kamenki settlement: by purchasing a branded magnet, slippers, or an anti-stress toy house for 300 roubles, the buyer received a coupon for a draw to win a 172 m² home at a 99.9% discount [10].

The banner rates for 2013 and 2014 have survived in the sales department's price lists — a grid of seven columns and eight price bands arranged by position on the main page, with the top spots commanding the highest prices [7][8].

Advertising on the main page, rubles per month VAT-inclusive for a "small square" 145×142 pixels (strip from top to bottom)
Strip20132014
1 (very top)9001200
28001000
3700900
4600800
5500800
6400700
7300600
8 (bottom of page)200500

Summing up the areas occupied by the square, we get a cost of 1,000 rubles per month

— price list of advertising spots for 2013 — a sample calculation for the "large square" at the bottom of the main page [7]

Fate of the website

Nizhny Novgorod topics continued to appear in 2016 as well, but gradually gave way to impersonal republished pieces on general topics of construction and taxes, all marked with the same date — March 2018 [11]. By September 2018 the former content had disappeared: the main page was taken over by a blank demo set of the "Pro Real Estate 4" theme with two untitled entries — "#8641" and "#8644" [12]. In this state, without any updates, the site remained in the archive until the end of 2019 [12].

One of the publication's regular advertisers, Volzhskaya Usadba LLC, also met its end in 2019: the company was declared bankrupt and on 21 June 2019 was removed from the register of legal entities following completion of liquidation proceedings [13].

Main page by year

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Contacts", snapshot dated June 18, 2013 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "About the Project", snapshot dated June 19, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "High-Speed Public Hearings 'Moscow–Kazan–Yekaterinburg'", snapshot dated August 10, 2016 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "A Six-Meter Multi-Armed Monster Has Become the Symbol of Nizhny Novgorod's High-Rises", snapshot dated November 13, 2017 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "There Will Be a Bridge to Podnove! But Later.", snapshot dated February 4, 2015 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Nizhny Novgorod's 'Shell' Is Coming Back", snapshot dated April 26, 2014 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Price list of advertising placements on prigorodlife.ru for 2013 (.xlsx file) (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Price list of advertising placements on prigorodlife.ru for 2014 (.xlsx file) (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — Web Archive — CRM "Settlement Properties" of the developer Volzhskaya Usadba, snapshot dated April 11, 2013 (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "A House for 300…", snapshot dated March 8, 2015 (archive)
  11. web.archive.org — Web Archive — prigorodlife.ru home page, snapshot dated May 8, 2018 (archive)
  12. web.archive.org — Web Archive — prigorodlife.ru home page, snapshot dated September 8, 2018 — blank "Pro Real Estate 4" theme (archive)
  13. rusprofile.ru — RusProfile (Unified State Register of Legal Entities) — Volzhskaya Usadba LLC, Kamenki (TIN 5245017321) — dissolved June 21, 2019