Hi,
Thank you for responding, Styopa.
At the time my server was setup, Ubuntu 12.04's repositories were outdated, so I added a repository with the latest development version of nginx, which was as stable and supported as a final release, and by default the web files were located in /usr/share/nginx/html. I had no say in that. I've updated it many times since, and never had any issues. In any event, I'll reconsider moving my web files to a standard directory, as it is always a good idea. Thank you for mentioning it.
The examples you sent me worked like a charm, and now I'm a bit closer of going live.
Best of luck,
Leon R.