April.nnov.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod company April Service LLC, which sold computers, components, and office equipment. The first archived snapshot of the homepage is dated October 9, 1999[1], and the last April 9, 2024[13]. The site began as a page with a price list and hardware reviews, by the mid-2000s had become a store catalog with a branch network, and after 2012 remained in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet without updates: the homepage content no longer changed, though the server continued to respond.

Early Years

In the 1999 snapshot, the site consisted of a welcome message, a news feed, and sections with a price list, technical information, partners, and contacts; visitors were advised to use Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. The company's address was Maslyakova Street, office 30, telephone (8312) 34-36-35, email postmaster@april.nnov.ru; the homepage displayed a Counter.nn.ru hit counter, and the footer design was credited "(c) NN.RU" with a link to design.nn.ru[1].

News from 1999–2000 mixed product announcements with reviews of new releases: Intel Pentium III processors on the Coppermine core and AMD K7 Athlon, the GeForce 256 graphics chipset, ABIT and ASUS motherboards. From November 1999, the company sent out its price list weekly by email, and on April 4, 2000, a "Book of Complaints and Suggestions" was opened on the site[2]. The technical information section later featured reviews of the i815 chipset and GeForce2 GTS; in June 2000 the company announced a new "MV" copier department, in July it added GSM mobile phones to its range, and in November conducted a customer survey together with the weekly "Computerra + Nizhny Novgorod"[3].

Catalog and Store

By early 2003 the site was calling itself an online store, and its catalog comprised twenty-five product categories — from motherboards to network cable. Around the same time, April Service announced the results of its "Virtual New Year" lottery: according to the site, more than two thousand people had taken part, the grand prize was a digital camera, and the results were promised to be published in the newspapers "Computerra" and "Extra N"[4].

A snapshot from February 2005 shows a menu of thirteen sections, including "Catalog," "Price List," "Auction," "Credit," "Service Center," and "Guestbook"; the site's statistics reported 1,659 items and 3,459 detailed descriptions. The footer listed five branches: Gorky Square, Shopping Center "Sormovskiye Zori," Shopping Center "Novaya Era," Dolgopolova Street, and Kirova Avenue, 11[5]. By January 2008 the number of branches had grown to eight, including Dzerzhinsk and Shakhunya, and the catalog showed 3,994 items in stock and 10,243 descriptions[9]. By March 2010 the main office was listed as Lebedeva Street, 8a, with branches also operating in Vorsma and Uren[10]. From late 2007, the site's news and promotions feature the KompAS computer store chain: in December 2007, an announcement of its victory in the "Best Service — 2007" survey[9], and in 2010, a joint promotion with Toshiba[10].

The Company and Its Context

The "About the Company" page stated that the company was founded in 1997, described itself as one of the largest suppliers of computer equipment in the Volga Federal District, and sold computers under its own April Computers brand. The management was also listed: director Dmitry Yuryevich Martynov, executive director Ilya Mikhaylovich Voronov, financial director Alevtina Aleksandrovna Busargina, head of the corporate department Mikhail Viktorovich Shiryaev, and service center director Albert Vitalyevich Khokhlov[6]. The service center was located at Ilyinskaya Street, 43[8].

Among the events the company sponsored were the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day, the regional mathematics olympiad, and seminars for small and medium-sized businesses[6]. On the page for the 2001 event, the April Service logo with a link to april.nnov.ru appears in the sponsors block — there were two sponsors, the other being Ellips Bank[14]. The site listed as partners April INFO LLC (ConsultantPlus), April SOFT LLC (1C:Franchise), and the company Sonet NN[7]. In the NN.RU directory, the "April Service" entry was placed in the "Computer and Office Equipment Retail" section[15].

Freeze and Closure

In the January 2012 snapshot, the news feed cut off at September 8, 2011, and all branches had disappeared from the footer — only one address remained, Lebedeva Street, 8a[11]. The most recent news item captured in the archive is dated May 25, 2012[12]. From that point the content froze: the 2016 and 2024 snapshots show identical "new arrivals" lists and the same poll — "Which laptop brand would you buy?" The site nonetheless continued to function — votes in the poll kept accumulating, 396 in 2016[12] and 426 in 2024 — while by 2024 the top entry had disappeared from the news feed, which now started from September 2011[13].

Over the years, the catalog filled up with off-topic categories — "Pet Supplies," "Plumbing," "Fishing," "Furniture"[12] — and by 2024 these had been joined by "Craft Supplies," "Champion Echo DJI Inoi — not for sale," and "Junk Heap"; the in-stock item counter read "−2" instead of the 106,573 shown eight years earlier, and only the year in the copyright notice was being updated[13]. The web archive captured the homepage for the last time on April 9, 2024, but individual product pages were still being served by the server as late as July 2025[16]. As of August 2026, the address april.nnov.ru returns a SpaceWeb hosting service page reading "Site unavailable."

Homepage by Year

An encyclopedia study: Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot October 9, 1999 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot May 20, 2000 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot January 4, 2001 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot February 4, 2003 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot February 3, 2005 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, "About the Company" page, web archive snapshot October 29, 2005 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, "Partners" page, web archive snapshot October 30, 2005 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, "Service Center" page, web archive snapshot November 4, 2005 (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot January 7, 2008 (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot March 12, 2010 (archive)
  11. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot January 23, 2012 (archive)
  12. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, web archive snapshot January 13, 2016 (archive)
  13. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, homepage, last web archive snapshot April 9, 2024 (archive)
  14. web.archive.org — internet.nn.ru, "Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2001" page, web archive snapshot April 22, 2002 (archive)
  15. web.archive.org — NN.RU directory, "Computer and Office Equipment Retail" section, web archive snapshot October 1, 2003 (archive)
  16. web.archive.org — april.nnov.ru, product page in catalog, web archive snapshot July 18, 2025 (archive)