arlan.nnov.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod automobile company "Arlan-MON," an official dealer of Renault, Volvo, and Land Rover. The company was located at 603086, Nizhny Novgorod, Sovnarkomovskaya Street, 13, in Pavilion 4 of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, and listed the phone number (8312) 24-56-68 and the email address arlan@arlan-mon.ru[3]. The first snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated May 2, 2003[1], and the last is dated June 29, 2006[3].
What it was
The site represented a dealership that sold cars of several brands at once in Nizhny Novgorod. As the home page stated, "we are the exclusive dealers of Renault in Nizhny Novgorod," and the company had been promoting the brand in the region "for four years"[3]. Besides Renault, the 2006 text also named Volvo and Land Rover: "we also represent in the Nizhny Novgorod region the cars of such leading world brands as VOLVO, LAND ROVER"[3]. In an earlier snapshot from the same year, the top menu listed four brands — RENAULT, LAND ROVER, VOLVO, and LADA[2].
The legal form given on the surviving pages varies: the caption at the bottom of the April 2006 snapshot reads "© OAO ARLAN-MON"[2], whereas in the nn.ru directory the company is listed as OOO Arlan-MON.
What the site looked like
The structure was extremely simple and fit into five sections, repeated at the top and bottom of the page: "Home," "About the Company," "Showroom," "Technical Center," "How to Find Us"[3]. Thus, besides selling cars, the site separately declared a service line of business — the technical center[2].
The central part of the last surviving version was occupied by two columns of model lineups. For Volvo, the models listed were S60 NEW, S40 NEW, V70, V50, XC90, XC70, and S80; for Land Rover — Discovery, Range Rover Sport, Defender, and Freelander[3]. Renault was set apart on this page as a separate link to its own address, www.renault.nnov.ru[3] — a technique typical of the time, when a dealer set up a separate third-level domain in the nnov.ru zone for a key brand.
The April 2006 snapshot contained a news block, and this is a telling detail: the only news item on it was dated October 13, 2004 and concerned the Renault Clio — "unique design, new engine, rich equipment" — with the same text displayed on the page twice[2]. In other words, a year and a half before the site disappeared, its news feed had already stopped being updated. The copyright mark in the June version bore the year 2006, and at the very bottom of the page was the signature of the template's maker — "template by BMX"[3].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
The site belonged to the commercial layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the first half of the 2000s: an online presence for an offline firm, where the web page served as a business card with an address, phone number, and list of models rather than as a sales tool. In the nn.ru directory sample on which the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating at Counter.nn.ru is based, the site is described as "Official dealer of Volvo, Renault, Land Rover in Nizhny Novgorod. Showroom. Auto technical center." with a rating figure of 53; no separate traffic data for it is recorded in the surviving counter samples.
In the published results table of the vote for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day in 2004, the domain arlan.nnov.ru does not appear[4]. This is a common situation for dealer and corporate sites: the showcase of Nizhny Novgorod resources primarily gathered portals, communities, and author projects, while company storefronts remained outside the contest categories.
How it closed
The circumstances of the closure cannot be reconstructed from the surviving material. The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive is dated June 29, 2006[3]; there are no later versions of the site in our data, and no information about a move to another address has survived. Thus, the resource's lifespan, as far as the archival traces show, fits within the period 2003–2006. In our sample the domain is listed as dead, and no signs of its revival have been recorded.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, April 2006 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, June 2006 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)