1ak.r52.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod division of the "First Battery Company" (Первая аккумуляторная компания), which traded automotive starter batteries and, in its early years, also car tires and motor oils. The office and warehouse were located in Nizhny Novgorod on Larina[1]. The site operated in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone r52.ru from 2003 to 2010 and was listed in the commercial category of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet directory on nn.ru with the description "Sale of automotive batteries, tires and motor oils"[1] — though in surviving snapshots of the homepage from 2008 onward, neither tires nor oils are mentioned anymore.
What the site looked like
The homepage was arranged as a typical corporate calling-card of the early 2000s: at the top, the company name and a contact block; on the left, a vertical menu; on the right, a single "About the Company" text. In the 2003 snapshot the contacts read: "Nizhny Novgorod, Larina St., bldg. 12, tel/fax (8312) 69-44-66," email info@akbnn.nnov.ru[1]. The menu consisted of the sections "About the Company," "Products," "Warranty Terms," "Price List," "Wholesalers," and "Contacts," with individual battery brands listed as separate items under "Products": Centra, Fiamm, Multu, Varta, Topla, ZAP, Black Horse, "Zubr," PAZ[1].
By 2008 the contact block had changed to "Larina St., bldg. 13 (checkpoint), tel/fax (831) 466-91-41, 463-98-37," the email to nn@1ak.ru; "News" and "Directions" were added to the menu, and the brand list was reshuffled: Exide and Eurostart appeared, Fiamm and Topla disappeared[2]. The full set of brands in the 2008 version: Exide, Centra, Eurostart, Mutlu, Black Horse, Varta, ZAP, "Zubr," PAZ[2].
What the company offered
The homepage text described not a single store but a federal-scale structure. As the homepage stated, "the First Battery Company is a group of companies holding a leading position in the market of automotive batteries in Russia and Belarus"[1]. Several lines of business were listed: importing and distributing foreign battery brands; in-house production of "Zubr" starter batteries jointly with Centra S.A., the European division of the Exide concern; sales of domestic batteries; and recycling of spent batteries. The 2003 version added "sale of a full range of car tires and sale of automotive oils and lubricants"[1]; by 2008 tires and oils had dropped out of the list of specializations[2].
Requirements for the dealer network were stated separately: a mandatory warranty workshop, a unified approach to equipment and point-of-sale design, unified rejection rules, and the "PAK standard" service package; batteries sold, as the homepage stated, were protected by a special "First Battery Company" sticker[1]. The abbreviation "PAK" was used as the company's main self-designation[1].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod The Internet
The site belonged to the most common layer of the Nizhny Novgorod web — corporate calling-card sites of trading firms that lived in the nn.ru directory and did not compete for traffic. In the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, 1ak.r52.ru holds no position on Counter.nn.ru and no votes at the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day: no counter is visible on the homepage in any snapshot, there was no forum or guestbook, and the only section that was ever updated was "News," which appeared in the menu by 2008[2].
Last version and closure
The version of the site captured on January 19, 2010 was already different — it had been moved to a template-based content management system whose service fields had not been filled in: the page title read "About the Company : Site Title," the description "Default description," the keywords "Default keywords"[3]. The Nizhny Novgorod address on Larina Street and both phone numbers remained the same, but the email changed to nn@1ak-m.ru[3].
The text had changed too: instead of the story of the group of companies and the dealer standard, a short statement appeared — "First Battery Company" was founded in 1999 in Moscow, supplies starter batteries for the secondary market, works with dealers in Moscow and the regions of Russia, and takes part in automotive exhibitions. At the bottom was a link to "our Moscow division's website," 1ak-m.ru[3]. The brand list had by this time shrunk to Centra, Ecostart, Mutlu, Black Horse, Varta and PAZ — Exide, Eurostart, ZAP and "Zubr" were gone; but "Warranty" and "Battery Operating Rules" were added to the menu, and the "Wholesalers" item became "Wholesalers Terms"[3].
The last snapshot of the homepage in the web archive is dated January 19, 2010[3]. Afterward the domain 1ak.r52.ru went out of service and no longer exists. Thus ended the history of the independent Nizhny Novgorod representation on the web: the last version of the homepage itself redirected the reader to the Moscow domain, and all that remains of the local site are three archival snapshots — from 2003, 2008 and 2010[1][2][3].
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2010 (archive)