kionn.ru was a Nizhny Novgorod culture-and-entertainment portal that called itself the "1st unCULTured [БЕСкультурный]": listings for cinemas, theatres, clubs and exhibitions in Nizhny Novgorod, news, a directory of venues, and contests[1]. The editors described themselves as the "culture-and-entertainment internet portal '1st unCULTured' (culture and leisure in Nizhny Novgorod)"[4] — hence the domain name. The copyright notice in the footer dated the project's history back to 2001[2], and the same footer listed mass-media registration certificate El No. FS77-34165, issued by Roskomnadzor[3]. The Nizhny Novgorod ties ran throughout: phone numbers with the 831 area code, addresses of city venues, and the editorial mailbox kionn@kionn.ru[2].

What the site looked like

The home page was built around two large menus. On the left were the sections: "News" (Nizhny Novgorod, Cinema, Music, Exhibitions, Sport, Show business, Company news), "Listings" (Cinema, Theatres, Touring shows, Exhibitions, Circus, Planetarium, Sport, Nizhny Novgorod Fair, Glinka Conservatory, Cafés, Clubs, Philharmonic), plus "Photo reports", "Reports", "Interviews", "Reviews" (film, music, books, plays), "Contests", "Comments", "Diaries"[1]. The archives of photo reports were sorted by year starting from 2008, and of reports and interviews from 2009; readers were invited to send in their own material ("Your photo reports", "Your reports", "Your interviews", "Your reviews")[1].

The center of the page carried announcements with prices and phone numbers. In an April 2011 snapshot these were the Palantir Festival rock festival at the Trud stadium with tickets from 1,000 to 4,000 rubles, a Paul Oakenfold concert at INDI CLUB, the final of the "Fedor Emelianenko Cup — Battle on the Volga" mixed martial arts tournament at the Trade Unions' Palace of Sports, a touring dwarf performers' show at the Nizhny Novgorod Circus, a Pavel Kashin concert at the Youth Theatre (TYuZ) (enquiries at +7 (831) 428-31-25) and a Denis Maidanov album presentation at the CCH "Jupiter" (box office (831) 419-44-28)[1]. By 2013 these had been joined by bus tours to "Rock over the Volga" and "Wild Mint" festivals, a lecture by drifter Nikita Shikov at the R. E. Alekseev Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University on Minina Street, 24, and a "Jobs in Nizhny Novgorod" section[2]; by 2014, business masterclasses at the Grand Hotel Oka on Prospekt Gagarina, 27, and an "Alisa" band concert at MILO CONCERT HALL[3][4].

By 2013 the site's own news feed consisted mostly of short retellings of other outlets' publications credited "based on materials from": vgoroden.ru, eventnn.ru, niann.ru, tour52.ru[2], and later also progorodnn.ru, innov.ru and nn4you.ru[4].

The "List of the unCULTured", personal account and mobile version

The portal's directory section was called the "List of the unCULTured [Список БЕСа]" and covered billiard halls, bowling clubs, galleries, hotels, palaces of culture, internet cafés, cinemas, concert halls, museums, night clubs, out-of-town recreation, restaurants, cafés and bars, saunas, theatres and travel agencies; the list came with a "Directory Map"[4].

The site was built as a community with registration: a counter of users and of those "online," a personal account with a profile, avatar, file archive, internal mail and a diary[4]. The "Media" block held video, podcasts and mini-games, with the online radio station ralphradio.ru listed separately[1]. A recurring feature on the home page was a poll: in 2011 it asked about the new design — the answer options included "The site got worse, you have to scroll down" and "Font too large and too many banners," while the previous version remained available at 2009.kionn.ru[1].

In February 2014 the portal announced a mobile version at m.kionn.ru and, as the home page put it, was "one of the first sites in Nizhny Novgorod with a mobile version"[3]. A long-running promise was the web series "unCULTured Spies [БЕСкультурные шпионы]": in 2011 the home page carried its trailer announcement[1], in 2013 a note read "Series in development"[2], and in February 2014, "First episodes coming soon"[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the combined list of Nizhny Novgorod Internet sites compiled for the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating Counter.nn.ru ranking, kionn.ru is recorded with a score of 1193 — the 24th result among 1,400 addresses; in the nn.ru directory it was described as a "Nizhny Novgorod culture-and-entertainment portal." It is not among the sites noted at the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day in 2004[5]; the portal gained visibility later, and by 2011 it was already inviting readers to its social-network communities right from the home page[1].

The revenue model is also visible. Besides banners and paid announcements, the menu gained sections for "Articles from Media Group" and "Linktrade Articles"[2], and by 2014 also "Yellow Media Articles"[3], while the "Take note" block and the home page footer carried unrelated ad lines for e-cigarettes[2] and "smoking blends"[4]. The site was built and maintained by the company Graff [«Графф»], with promotion handled by the internet company Top-7[3].

How it closed

The last snapshot of the working home page in our sample from the web archive is dated August 13, 2014: the news feed on it ends on August 11, while the announcements run through November[4]. None of the snapshots show any closure notice or farewell to readers — the portal simply stopped updating. In our liveness check, the domain kionn.ru today serves neither the portal nor its archive: the address is empty. Thirteen years of listings, photo reports and coverage of Nizhny Novgorod concerts, exhibitions and clubs survive only in web archive snapshots.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archived)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archived)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, February 2014 (archived)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, August 2014 (archived)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archived)