bk.nn.ru was the website of Byuro Kart ("Bureau of Cards"), a Nizhny Novgorod firm that made plastic cards, badges, and business cards on plastic. The company operated in Nizhny Novgorod: orders were issued from office No. 309 at 176a Prospekt Gagarina[3], and the site addressed its new services directly to "Nizhny Novgorod firms"[1]. The site opened as the firm's online presence; the copyright notice on its pages listed the years 2003–2005[4]. Web archive snapshots span the period from April 2004 to September 2005[1][4].
What the site looked like
The menu had eight sections: "About the Company," "News," "Card Types," "Technologies," "Badges, Clips, Lanyards," "Automation," "Contacts," and "Guestbook"[3]. The first thing a visitor saw in 2004 was the firm's news feed; its earliest entry was dated August 18, 2003, and the latest May 7, 2004[2]. The opening entry explained the point of the venture: "We have opened our firm's online presence," after which the visitor was invited to "learn more about the types of plastic cards, their production technologies, and the possibilities for using them in your business," as the home page put it[1]. The footer carried the designer's signature — Igor Krytjev[3]. Feedback relied on a "guestbook" and the email address listed in the "Contacts" section[2].
What the firm offered
The 2003–2004 news feed effectively served as a price list and catalogue. The firm made laminated plastic cards in runs starting from a single piece: a full-color image at 1440 dpi resolution was protected by a thin laminate fused to the base into a monolithic card, on which embossing, a barcode, a PIN code, a scratch panel, a magnetic stripe, or a signature strip could be applied. Such a card started at 24 rubles apiece[1]. Separately advertised was the card's "textured surface" — a relief that, as the home page put it, gave the card a "natural warmth"[1].
Discount and club cards were printed on ready-made blanks in twenty design variants, with a blank costing 26.8 rubles[1]. Business cards on white and translucent plastic were offered from 12 rubles apiece for a run of 100[1]. A separate line was identification cards — passes and badges with the holder's photograph, contactless proximity cards, magnetic stripe encoding, and barcode application[1]. The firm also sold consumables: in March 2004 the range of blank cards was expanded with colored plastic (beige, yellow, blue, black, light blue, green, and red) with a low-coercivity Lo-Co magnetic stripe, CR80 format, 0.76 mm thickness, packed 500 to a box[1]. The badges section went into detail on pockets for horizontal and vertical orientation, clips, carabiner lanyards, chains, and punches for cutting an elongated or round hole[3].
Online store
On May 7, 2004, the site posted an announcement that an online store for equipment and consumables was being prepared; customers were asked to suggest which products and in what quantities they would like to buy so that the firm could "put together the right range," and the company's staff thanked customers for their help in developing the project[2]. By March 2005 the store was up and running: the home page announced that delivery within Nizhny Novgorod was free on purchases over $100, cost $5 below that amount, that orders were delivered only on business days, and that a purchase could be picked up at office No. 309 at 176a Prospekt Gagarina[3].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet, and closure
The site lived in the nn.ru domain zone and belonged to the layer we describe as the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: it was a typical corporate site of a small printing firm — not a media outlet or a community, but a service showcase with a news feed standing in for a catalogue. According to our Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, the site's score on Counter.nn.ru was 28.0 — a very modest standing against the leaders of the Nizhny Novgorod counter, whose scores ran into the thousands. The site was entered for Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2004, but the published voting results record no votes for it[5].
The site stopped being updated in 2005: the March snapshot's footer read "Last updated: March 2005," and the September one read "May 2005," even though the page content had not changed in the intervening half-year[3][4]. The last web archive snapshot of the home page is dated September 12, 2005[4]. The domain bk.nn.ru no longer exists, and the surviving archived copies remain the only evidence the site ever operated.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (September) (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (September) (archive)
- web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)