advocatshmelev.narod.ru was the site of the law office of A. F. Shmelyov, hosted on the free hosting service Narod.Ru, existing since 2001. The office worked in two cities: a snapshot of the home page from November 30, 2001 lists two contacts — the address advocatshmelev@yandex.ru with the phone number (812) 586-33-07, and the address advocatsburo@mail.ru with the phone number (8312) 75-00-58, that is, with the Nizhny Novgorod area code[1]. The site's card in the Nizhny Novgorod directory nn.ru (the /rub/ section) carried the description "your home lawyer — free — document templates and new laws, provision of legal services in Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, internet." By 2012 the site had been reworked into the "first free" online legal and tax consultation, and the Nizhny Novgorod phone number had disappeared from the home page[2].

An office for two cities

The page title in 2001 was "ADVOKATSKOE BYURO SHMELYOVA A.F." (LAW OFFICE OF A. F. SHMELYOV)[1]. The meta description of the same page listed what the office offered: provision of legal services in Saint Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, legal consultations, legal support for business, document templates, legislative news, free access to the "Garant" and "Konsultant Plus" legal databases, court practice news, and rulings of the plenums of the Supreme Court and the Higher Arbitration Court[1]. The same page carried a link to the partner site advocat007.narod.ru and the standard English-language template line: "Send mail to advocatshmelev@yandex.ru with questions or comments about this web site"[1].

The contacts on the 2001 page were listed in order: first the Saint Petersburg address and number, second the Nizhny Novgorod one[1]. The directory description recorded the same two-city construction, naming Saint Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod separated by a comma.

A place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, the site was present as an ordinary line in the nn.ru directory, which our web-archive crawl picked up. According to this card, the office is recorded with a Counter.nn.ru regional counter reading of 48 — a modest figure. On what such values meant and what the ranking as a whole looked like, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating. The site does not appear in the results of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote: no votes were cast for it[3].

Online consultation

The 2012 snapshots show an already different site under the same name. The header still read "ADVOKATSKOE BYURO SHMELYOVA A.F. ON-LINE," but the window title had been rewritten for search queries: "Tax and legal consultation online, free consultation by: phone, skype, icq, skype, ICQ"[2]. As the home page stated, the site's goals were "raising the legal literacy of all comers and providing a new kind of legal aid — over the Internet"[2].

The contacts had become remote: phone +79110101001, Skype alexandr.shmelev777, ICQ 273-42-22-89, and the email address advocats@yandex.ru[2]. In the January 3, 2012 snapshot the phone took calls from 10 to 20, Skype from 10, and ICQ from 10 to 22[2]; in the snapshot from October 15 of the same year the phone was listed from 10:00 to 18:00, while Skype and ICQ had shifted to the evening — from 19:00 and from 19 to 22:00 respectively[4]. The menu consisted of the sections "Tax Consultation," "Legal Consultation," "Site Map," "Contacts," "New Laws," "About Us," "About Our Work," "Document Templates," "Articles," "Black List," "Prices," and "Lawyers Joke"[2]. Search worked across three scopes — the site itself, Narod.Ru, and Yandex[2].

By that time the page's content consisted mainly of self-promotion and a list of services: legal support for organizations and individual entrepreneurs, labor-law questions and personnel audits, personal income tax deductions, property tax and transport tax for individuals, work with accounts receivable, disputes with the traffic police, and the choice between an individual entrepreneur and an LLC[2]. As the home page stated, over the course of 2009 more than 7,500 legal and tax consultations had been given, of which about 5,000 were online, and the interests of 25 clients were defended in courts and government bodies, while over the course of 2010 there were about 5,000 consultations, of which about 3,500 were online, and 38 clients[2]. The same page reported on the head lawyer's experience: a lawyer since 1994, in management work since 2002, and a tax consultant since 2008[2]. The page closed with a joke: "We provide services with quality, speed, and low cost. Choose any two criteria"[2]. In the October snapshot, a list of search-engine keywords had been added at the bottom[4].

The fate of the address

None of the 2012 snapshots retain the Nizhny Novgorod coordinates any longer: no address, no phone number with the 8312 code, no mention of the city — only the mobile number, Skype, and ICQ remain[2][4]. The last examined snapshot of the home page is dated October 15, 2012[4]. A check of the domain on April 12, 2026 showed an empty uCoz site-builder template: "Personal Site — Home Page," a menu of four items ("Home Page," "Site Information," "Guest Book," "Feedback"), a login form, a counter reading "Online total: 1," and the caption "Copyright MyCorp 2026"[5]. There was no content on the page at that time, and the entire archive of entries consisted of just two months — May and June 2013[5]. When checked in August 2026, the site at this address responded.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, January 2012 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, October 2012 (archive)
  5. advocatshmelev.narod.ru — Current state of the domain, check of April 12, 2026 (archive)