dakar.r52.ru — a site of the Nizhny Novgorod company "Dakar" that existed on a third-level domain in the r52.ru zone from 2001 to 2013. Its Nizhny Novgorod affiliation is confirmed by the contact details on the latest preserved version of the home page: "603006, N. Novgorod, ul. Varvarskaya 32," phone numbers "(831) 2910565, 2910566," fax 4637875, and email dakar@r52.ru[2]. Over the twelve years captured in the web archive, the site's content changed completely: in 2001 the address belonged to a manufacturing firm, while by the late 2000s it hosted a laser engraving workshop producing awards and souvenirs[1][2].
Two versions of the same address
The earliest preserved snapshot is dated March 7, 2001. It was a business-card page with almost no text: the heading "OOO 'DAKAR'," the year, the company name, and two short labels — "Coding" and "Info-online" — with no explanation[1]. What the firm actually did in 2001 was indicated only by the page's service keywords, invisible to the reader: "manufacturing, agricultural spare parts, nails, furniture foam, wood processing" (spelling as in the original)[1]. Neither an address nor a phone number appeared in this version.
By the last snapshot, September 2, 2013, nothing remained of the earlier profile except the name. "Dakar" described itself as a supplier of corporate award products and an engraving workshop[2]. Our material contains no intermediate versions by which the change of activity could be dated; the footer of the later page still carried a 2007 copyright notice, meaning the site's last edit was made at least six years before the final snapshot[2].
What the home page looked like
The menu of the later version listed the company's lines of work: "Corporate prizes," "Awards," "Engraving," "Corporate prizes and awards," "Sublimation," "Office nameplates," "Badges," "Photo gallery," "Laser engraving," as well as sections "About the company," "Products," "Company news," and "Contacts"[2].
The home page text was built around someone else's product catalogue. As the home page stated, the company "offers products from the BRIGHT AWARDS catalogue," described as "a professional source of corporate award products"[2]. It went on to list the assortment: "striking awards in glass and acrylic, diplomas and certificates in the form of plaques, award plates," as well as the production of badges, tags, and office nameplates[2]. The page closed with two phrases typical of the business advertising of the time: about readiness to handle tasks "with high quality in the shortest possible time" and about the company valuing the client's time[2].
A separate line at the bottom credited the developer: "Company R52.RU design and hosting"[2]. The site and the email address lived on the domain of the same provider that hosted it — an ordinary arrangement for small Nizhny Novgorod firms, where a company did not buy its own domain name at all but received a third-level address together with the hosting.
Its place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
"Dakar" belonged to the mass layer of corporate business-card sites that formed the backbone of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the 2000s: a site serving as a company reference, with no updated content and no attempt to compete for an audience. It entered our sample of addresses through the nn.ru catalogue's directory, where it is described as producing "business souvenirs with branding (pens, keychains, pencils) using laser technology" — meaning that in the catalogue the firm was also listed as a souvenir manufacturerArchival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating).
The address does not appear in the preserved samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating, and no visitor counters are visible on the preserved pages. In the published results of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting, which list more than a thousand entries across categories, neither the domain dakar.r52.ru nor the name "Dakar" appears[3]. The site took no part in the public life of the local web and, apparently, never set out to.
How it closed
The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive is dated September 2, 2013[2]. No later versions have survived; the domain dakar.r52.ru is now unresponsive. There was no notable moment of closure: the page, unchanged since its 2007 copyright notice, simply stopped being updated and then disappeared along with the subdomain. What became of the "Dakar" company itself after 2013 cannot be established from the material available to us.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting, 2004 (archive)