consultant.aprilnn.ru was the site of the Nizhny Novgorod information center of the "KonsultantPlus" legal information distribution network, run by "Aprel INFO" ("April INFO"), part of the "Aprel" ("April") group. The home page was signed with the phone number (8312) 78-30-40 and the address law@aprilnn.ru[1], and in the Counter.nn.ru directory the resource was described as the information center of the all-Russian "Konsultant PLUS" legal information distribution network in N. Novgorod[5]. The Wayback Machine's snapshots span from April 2001[1] to January 2010[4].

What the site looked like

In 2001 the lower part of the home page served as navigation: "Catalog of systems", "Price list", "Our services", "Order documents", "Order a demo version", "About the company", "Vacancies", "Our staff". A separate block, "Aprel Group", linked to "Aprel Info", "KonsultantPlus", "Aprel Soft", "1C", "BEST", "Aprel Service" and "Sonet NN"[1]. By November 2003 the menu had gained "Directions", while the group's list stayed the same[2].

By 2006 the navigation had been rebuilt into the sections "Company", "Products", "Services" and "Aprel Group"; a "Seminars" section appeared, and "1C" and "BEST" dropped out of the group's list, leaving "Aprel Info", "Aprel Soft", "Aprel Service" and "Sonet NN". The right-hand "Useful information" column offered the magazine "Glavnaya Kniga" ("The Main Book"), an analytical review, "Document of the Week", "Ask a Lawyer", "Auditor's Tips" and currency exchange rates[3]. In the site's last version this was joined by an "Our Clients" section and a form for subscribing to legislative changes by email[4].

What the site offered

In substance it was a showcase for legal-reference systems and a feed of legislative news. In March 2001 the entire home page was given over to the "Support Program for the Russian Accountant" campaign: from March 12 to 31 the "KonsultantPlus" network gave away, free of charge, the book "Tax Code: Offense and Liability" simultaneously in 208 cities across Russia, with a print run stated at 600,000 copies, plus an electronic supplement of about 200 documents on accounting and taxation[1].

From 2003 the page's core became the weekly digests "What's New in Russian Legislation" and "What's New in Regional Legislation". The regional feed covered local acts: a resolution of the Regional Legislative Assembly of 16.10.2003 No. 680-III on public-sector pay rates, a resolution of the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma of 17.09.2003 No. 54 on the social support program for 2004, and a law of Nizhny Novgorod Region of 06.10.2003 No. 83-Z on land pricing. Alongside it hung an "Accountant's Calendar" for November 2003 and company news — the results of the "Do You Know the Firm 'Aprel INFO' LLC" contest dated October 14, 2003, and an announcement dated June 11, 2003 about the "Computer Elite 2002" award[2].

Nizhny Novgorod specifics were also emphasized in the products: in February 2006 the site reported machine-readable tax reporting forms in the "KonsultantPlus: Nizhny Novgorod Edition" system[3], and by 2009 the main offering, as the home page put it, was the "Universal Complex of Systems for the Accountant — IPK Nizhegorodsky Bukhgalter" ("Nizhny Novgorod Accountant"), made up of six sections: federal and Nizhny Novgorod legislation on taxes and accounting, expert consultations, an archive of accounting publications, descriptions of more than 4,000 business transactions, and tax guides[4].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the Counter.nn.ru directory the site stood in the section "Firms (Enterprises): Software: Legal information systems". In the snapshot from April 25, 2002, the category contained four sites, and consultant.aprilnn.ru ranked second with a rating of 44.81 — ahead of it was only the TsMIKI legal information service with 258.59[5]. In the snapshot from November 24, 2003, sorted by rating, the category already held seven sites, and the ranking held: TsMIKI — 374, consultant.aprilnn.ru — 194, the company "Unite" — 156, "Legal Information Agency" — 95, "Garant-Volga" — 19, "Kodeks" — 14[6]. This neighborhood in the category shows that the market for legal-reference systems was one of the most densely occupied niches of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet; more on the rating itself is in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

consultant.aprilnn.ru itself does not appear in the results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, but two other sites from the group do: april.nnov.ru ("Aprel Service — computers, components, online store") at number 65 and 1c.aprilnn.ru ("Aprel Soft") at number 78[7].

How it closed

The Wayback Machine's last snapshot of the home page is dated January 12, 2010, and by then the site had already fallen behind: the digest feed breaks off at the issue "June 5–11, 2009", the "Accountant's Calendar" shows June 2009 and October 2007 at the same time, and the footer signature still read "Aprel Info ©2000-2007"[4]. By comparison, in 2006 the same signature read "©2000-2006"[3]. There are no later snapshots of the home page in our web-archive sample.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2006 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2010 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — counter.nn.ru directory, "Legal information systems", 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — counter.nn.ru directory, "Legal information systems" by rating, 2003 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)