Autointernet.ru — the “AUTOINTERNET.RU Car Trading Marketplace”, a Nizhny Novgorod classified-ads site for the sale of new and used cars. The footer of the home page read “About the project 2000-2002 AUTOINTERNET.RU OAO ‘KTIkrepmash’”[1], while in the document’s service keywords, next to the words “Car sales”, it listed “Nizhny Novgorod, Нижний Новгород, gaz, vaz”[1] — the marketplace was addressed to the Nizhny Novgorod car market. The address existed for more than twenty years, but it remained an automotive one only during the first part of that span.

The marketplace in 2002

The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 5 June 2002; the page itself carried a hand-written date — “Wednesday, 5. June 2002”[1]. Right there it also displayed a counter showing how full the database was: “Cars: 5769”[1].

The menu consisted of six sections — “Buy”, “Sell”, “Car dealerships”, “Catalog”, “Info”, “Forum”[1]. The showcase on the home page held three listings with prices in conventional units (u.e., the dollar-pegged unit then common in Russian pricing): a NISSAN Patrol built in 2000 for 32,000 u.e., a 1999 BMW 5-series for 19,500 u.e. and a 1994 TOYOTA 4Runner for 8,500 u.e.[1] In the bottom text menu the “Catalog” item was accompanied by the note “GAZ” (the Gorky Automobile Plant)[1].

The “Info” section brought together four reference topics — “car repair shops”, “car parts”, “rental”, “insurance”; besides them, the home page also listed “Forum”, “News”, “Links” and “About the project”[1]. That is, the project was conceived not as a single classifieds board but as a small automotive portal with a discussion area and a directory of related services.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site entered the Nizhny Novgorod Internet through the rubricator of the nn.ru directory: according to the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, autointernet.ru was listed there with the description “Real offers for the sale of new and used cars of any make, from car dealerships and private individuals. Here you can Buy/Sell/Order a car. Car repair shops, car parts, rental, insurance” — the wording of the directory card, not our own assessment. In the database compiled from the Counter.nn.ru counter, the address corresponds to a rating figure of 6563.

At the same time, no votes for autointernet.ru were recorded in the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day competition[2]: the marketplace held its place in directories and in the counter, but it did not make it into the ranks of the projects the voters found notable.

How the address stopped being automotive

By the end of the 2010s a completely different site stood at the address. The snapshot of 22 August 2019 shows a page without a single mention of cars: nothing but link-phrases about citizenship, permanent residence and passports (“Immigration to ireland from russia 2019 official site”, “What a Swedish residence permit gives you”), the heading “Issue for 19.08.2019, 08:43” and the credit line “All rights reserved © 2017-2019 http://autointernet.ru/”[3]. Judging by that copyright line, the unrelated content took over the domain no later than 2017.

The web archive inventory for the address adds up to 51 snapshots; the last of them is dated 7 October 2022[4]. Our own probe of the domain on 13 February 2023 no longer obtained a readable page: there is no working site at this address. Thus, all that is left of the “Car Trading Marketplace” are the early archived snapshots — a showcase of three cars, a counter standing at 5769 listings, and the credit line of OAO “KTIkrepmash” (an open joint-stock company) under the project.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2019 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Last snapshot in the web archive, October 2022 (archive)