duslar.ru ("Duslar") is a Tatar internet portal that operated from 2004. It began as a Nizhny Novgorod project: the home page on December 5, 2004, announced a Tatar disco and offered a piece titled "Location of Tatar villages in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast"[1]. That same month the site was listed among the participants of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day — an annual competition that, as the results page explained, was run by "the internet company NN.RU"[4]. Over the following years the portal drifted away from its local theme toward an all-Russian one: by 2011 it called itself a "Tatar portal of friends," uniting "tens of thousands of Tatars around the world"[3].

2004: a disco, a photo album, villages

The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated December 5, 2004. The top line carried an announcement for the Tatar disco "Yash Yorekler": "5:00–6:00 PM FREE ADMISSION. After 6:00 PM the price is 100 rubles for everyone," as the home page stated[1]. Below it ran the site's news feed — photo album updates, a piece titled "Muslims in the Army," a two-part photo gallery "Tatar Youth," and, among other things, that same reference on the location of Tatar villages in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast[1].

There were few sections: the "Duslar" forum, a way to add news, a "Tatar Photo Album" inviting readers to send in pictures to info@duslar.ru, "Tatar Reading" — "interesting stories and opinions from the life of the Tatar people" — and a music project called "Tatarika," which the home page described as created by "two Moscow DJs" who worked Tatar discos[1]. The snapshots contain no information about the site's owner; the only contacts were the email info@duslar.ru and a mobile number, 8-903-5662852, given with the disco announcement — there was no phone number with a Nizhny Novgorod area code on the home page[1]. The footer read: "Copyright © 2004 Duslar.ru"[1].

2007: an entertainment portal and amateur photo reports

By August 2007 the site presented itself as "Tatars — Duslar — Tatar Entertainment Portal — Tatar Dating — Tatar News — Religion"[2]. The menu consisted of blocks labeled "GAME," "SMS," "EXCHANGE," "NEWS," "ARCHIVE"; a dating module had appeared with a "New Faces" section and profiles such as "Name: Don Eldarius, Age: 16, City: Moscow"[2].

The main content had become photo reports and videos sent in by readers, listed one after another on the home page: "Kamkino forever (photos from Liliya from Kamkino)," "Photos from Gulya Lisitsyna (Urga)," "Snapshots from little Ilnara from Medyana," "Mochaley and Safazhay," "Rushan from Urazovka," "Little Maratik (Medyana)," as well as a clip titled "Just Griban! 2007" with the route "Sergach, turn onto 'Serebryanye Klyuchi' — Yanovo — Finish"[2]. Alongside these were new tracks from the "Tatarika" project, including collaborations with performers Vasilina and Dzhamilya[2].

By this time the site had also become densely monetized with other people's advertising links: the header and footer of the home page were filled with lines such as "Kozhukhovo, children's shoes," "China visa," "international flower delivery," "seal and stamp making," "Website promotion, search engine optimization," and dozens of similar entries[2]. The copyright notice by then read "© 2004-2007 Duslar"[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

At the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day in 2004, "Duslar | Tatar independent portal" was entered in the "Most Useful Site" category, where 48 sites competed. According to the voting results, closed as of December 26, 2004, it received one vote by email and none by SMS. By comparison, the category was led by "Nizhny Novgorod Auto Forum.nnov.ru" (212 votes by email and 36 by SMS) and OPLATA.RU (206 and 9)[4]. The site does not appear in the samples of the Counter.nn.ru counter that we have preserved, so its traffic cannot be assessed by the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

For the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, "Duslar" is notable precisely for the direction of its drift: built up around Tatar villages and discos, within a few years it ceased to be a local project, retaining its Nizhny Novgorod layer only in the photo albums sent in by readers.

The fate of the address

A snapshot from March 10, 2011, finds the site completely rebuilt: in place of the news feed there was now a login form with "E-mail" and "Password" fields and a "This is someone else's computer" checkbox, along with "Log In" and "Register" buttons. The text on the entry page promised: "On our portal you can find old friends and make new ones, browse photo albums, read diaries, and simply chat with anyone you like," as the home page stated[3]. Service sections typical of an adult social project had appeared — "About the Project," "Advertise on the Site," "Terms of Use," "Careers," "Help" — with the footer reading "© 2004-2011 Duslar.ru — Tatar portal of friends"[3]. There was no more public content on the home page: everything had moved behind registration. The rebuild into a social network was the result of a merger: in May 2008 the projects duslar.ru and tatarland.ru merged, and the combined Tatar social network took the name "Duslar.ru"[7]. It did not survive competition with the Russian-language network VKontakte: most members of the Tatar network moved there[7].

The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive is dated July 24, 2024, and its contents can no longer be read as text[5]. When checked in August 2026, the site at this address was responding.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting results, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Last snapshot in the web archive, 2024 (archive)
  6. duslar.ru (archive)
  7. atoom.ru — Gabdrakhmanova G. F., Makhmutov Z. A. Russia's National Internet: Toward a Statement of the Problem // Oriental Studies. 2018. No. 3