arial.nn.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod company OOO "Arial", which traded petroleum products: industrial, transformer and motor oils, lubricants and technical fluids[1]. Besides trading, the firm engaged in road haulage and construction work — both lines of business had their own sections on the site[1]. The Nizhny Novgorod connection was visible right on the home page: delivery to customers in Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, Kstovo and Bor was free[1], and among the offerings was supply of products from oil refineries of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast[1]. The first snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated 12 March 2003[2], and the last is dated 8 April 2008, when the address returned a hosting provider's default placeholder page[3].

What the site looked like

The title of the home page was also a complete description of the firm's business: "OOO Arial | Sale of petroleum products, industrial and transformer oils, lubricants and fluids," as the home page put it[1]. Below it was the line "Sale of petroleum products wholesale, in small lots and retail"[1].

The menu was split into three blocks. "About the company" led to the pages "Arial OOO," "Site news," "Contacts and details," as well as to two separate route maps — to the office and to the warehouse[1]. The "Products and services" section consisted of four items: "Petroleum products and lubricants," "Emulsol EGT," "Road haulage," "Construction work"[1]. The third block, "Price list," offered a download of the petroleum products and lubricants range in MS Excel format and an "Order products or price list" form[1].

The online order service appeared late: on 3 November 2004 the news reported that "the internet-order service has been put into operation," and questions about prices, availability and delivery were to be submitted through the order form; a subscription to the Excel price list mailing was also available there[1]. A month earlier, on 28 October 2004, the company announced a change of email address to a mail.ru address[1]. The earliest preserved snapshot, from March 2003, caught the site with an "About the company | Arial" page[2].

Site news

The home page was dominated by the "Site news" feed — effectively a bulletin board run by the supply and sales department. The surviving entries span autumn and December 2004[1].

On 16 December 2004 the firm announced a clearance sale "due to warehouse cleanup" with specific prices: Lukoil-Super SAE 5W30 motor oil in a 4-liter canister — 290 rubles, Lukoil-TM 5-18 transmission oil in a 4-liter canister — 180 rubles, VM-4 vacuum oil in a 16 kg can — 1,550 rubles, a 175 kg barrel of grease 1-13 — 8,500 rubles, Emulsol EGT — from 21,000 rubles per tonne in bulk and from 22,000 rubles in barrels[1].

Reverse purchases took up just as much space. On 25 November 2004 "Arial" was looking to buy used oil "in any volume, into our own tank trucks" and was interested in regular deliveries[1]. On 17 November — granulated polyamide PASh-21 in bags, with monthly demand stated at 20–40 tonnes[1]. On 20 December an announcement appeared about buying a used tank trailer with a capacity of 4–6 cubic meters for a ZIL or KamAZ truck, or alternatively a flatbed trailer[1]. On 3 November the company reported regular runs of its tank trucks to Moscow and its readiness to bring back transformer oil from there[1].

A list of suppliers posted on the same page shows the geography of purchases: "Lukoil-Volganefteprodukt," "Slavneft — YaNPZ imeni Mendeleeva," "Rikos" and "RostovOrgSintez" from Rostov, "Azmol" from Berdyansk, "Lukoil — Volgograd," "Ryazneftekhimprodukt," "Rosneft" — MZ "Nefteprodukt," the Moscow oil-and-grease plant and the Perm plant for lubricants and cutting fluids[1].

A place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site made it into our sample via the nn.ru directory listing, where its entry described "Arial" more broadly than the home page did: wholesale and retail trade in industrial oils and lubricants, passenger and freight road haulage, construction work, and turnkey repair of apartments and offices. This is a typical mid-2000s corporate calling-card website of a small trading firm: Nizhny Novgorod Internet of those years consisted largely of pages like this one.

The site was not a notable resource. In the surviving voting results for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004, neither the domain nor the firm's name appears[4]. It is likewise absent from the surviving Counter.nn.ru counter samples — for more on how this data is structured, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

Move and closure

On 17 December 2004 an entry appeared in the feed: "Our site is moving to http://www.arialnn.ru"[1]. The move announcement remained on the home page in the February 2005 snapshot as well, meaning the address in the nn.ru zone kept working after the announcement[1]. Few snapshots survive from the years that followed.

By 8 April 2008 the address was serving the hosting provider's standard page: "The address you requested points to this server, but no resource with this name was found," with the promotional line "NN.RU — The Best Hosting for firms in Nizhny Novgorod" and the phone/fax number (8312) 19-77-99, 19-97-84[3]. These contacts belong to the hosting provider, not to "Arial": the firm's site was no longer at that address. The last snapshot in the web archive is dated the same 8 April 2008[3]. According to our information, the domain arial.nn.ru no longer exists.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting results, 2004 (archive)