helvetica.r52.ru was the site of the Nizhny Novgorod company OOO Helvetica-NN, which traded in materials and components for outdoor advertising and construction[1]. The site lived in the Nizhny Novgorod domain r52.ru, the phone numbers on the home page were given with the (8312) area code[1], and in the directory of the "Nizhny Novgorod On-Line" portal the firm was listed under the category "Firms (Enterprises): Advertising" with the note "Active, 03/05/2001"[2]. The copyright notice in the footer covered the years 2002–2005[1]; the earliest preserved snapshot of the site is dated April 28, 2001, and the latest — December 1, 2005[5].

What the firm traded in

The home page displayed a long list titled "Most Popular Catalog Sections." It listed self-adhesive film (ORACAL, MACal, translucent, mounting, for light boxes and for lamination), printing materials, including wide-format, thermal transfer film, double-sided tape, PVC plastic, mirror and engraving grade, plexiglass and acrylic glass, cellular and monolithic polycarbonate, polystyrene, pentaprint, polycryl, composite panels REYNOBOND and HAIDA, banner fabric and mesh, polyester fabrics, adhesives (including COSMOFEN), aluminum profiles of various systems, sidewalk signs (stendes), roller displays, the Flexiframe exhibition system, components for neon signage — tubes, transformers, electrodes, silicone wire — lighting equipment (belt light, duralight, lightec, fluorescent and LED lamps, strobes), printing and cutting plotters, as well as Festool power tools[1]. A separate line item was the "Neon Plant"[1]. The catalog description in the nn.ru directory was shorter: "Sale of materials for the production and manufacture of outdoor advertising"[2][3].

The news feed

A prominent place on the home page was occupied by a news feed with dates. For 2005, the preserved snapshot recorded: March 14 — expansion of the range of transformers for neon signs Tecnoservice (Italy) and Resinblock (F.A.R.T., Italy); March 17 — mirror acrylic "Plastkril"; March 28 — mirror ABS sheet for mechanical and laser engraving; March 30 — mirror polystyrene "SUCCESS"; April 1 — EL-W electroluminescent wire from Israel; April 22 — a price cut on MACtac self-adhesive film (Belgium), which the page offered at "ONLY 69 rubles/m2" for purchases from 0.1 running meter; May 5 — NARVA lamps (Germany): linear fluorescent lamps from 4 to 58 W, colored fluorescent and ultraviolet — 18 and 36 W; May 23 — thermo-waterproof adhesive PASCO FIX and filler FILL; June 27 — a price cut on F.A.R.T. transformers, Cosmofen CA-12 adhesive and NARVA lamps, with phone numbers "(8312) 64-97-93, 64-93-91, 64-93-53"; October 27 — Neo-Neon decorative lighting[1]. The feed in the preserved snapshot breaks off at the October 27, 2005 entry[1].

What the site looked like

The menu (at the top of the page and in the footer) consisted of the items "News," "About the Company," "Address," "Regions," "Catalog," "On Sale Today…," "Technologies," and "Links"; after the item "Prices" the preserved text shows the remnant of an HTML comment ("Цены -->") — apparently this section had been disabled[1]. The "Address" item was present in the menu, but the address itself is not in the preserved text of the home page[1]. Comments were to be sent to webmaster@helvetica-nn.ru — meaning the firm also had an address in the second-level domain helvetica-nn.ru[1]. Also preserved from the home page design was a banner reading "ATTENTION! MOSCOW PRICES!"[1].

The footer listed the Helvetica group of companies: "Helvetica-T," "Helvetica," "Helvetica-YUG," "Helvetica-Pechat," "Helvetica-RM," "Helvetica-Stroitelstvo," as well as firms with regional names — Perm, Samara, Voronezh, Tyumen, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Ural, Saint Petersburg[1]. The Nizhny Novgorod site thus belonged to the local branch of an interregional group of companies.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the Nizhny Novgorod Internet the site is known from lines in the nn.ru catalog. In the catalog snapshot from May 30, 2001, "Helvetica-NN" appears in the category "Firms (Enterprises): Advertising," which listed 28 firms in total; in the "Rating" column against it stands 0.00, the same as twenty-one other lines in the list, while the top six lines had non-zero ratings (from 48.74 for the company's own site "NN.RU" down to 0.05)[2]. In the snapshot of the "Outdoor Advertising" category from April 25, 2002, ten sites are sorted by rating: the first five have a rating (from 8.94 to 1.25), while the last five, including "Helvetica-NN," show "Rating: none" in that column[3]. Judging by these pages, the firm either did not install the Counter.nn.ru, or installed it without accumulating statistics; more on this sample in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the preserved table of voting results for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2004, neither the domain helvetica.r52.ru nor the name "Helvetica" appears[4].

How it ended

The last snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated December 1, 2005; the archive preserved no later accesses to helvetica.r52.ru[5]. At the time of the last snapshot the site looked alive: the last feed entry was made just over a month before it, and the catalog was in place[1]. Our check found that the domain helvetica.r52.ru currently does not respond. What became of the firm itself, and whether it moved to the domain helvetica-nn.ru mentioned in the webmaster's address[1], cannot be determined from the available materials.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, category "Firms (Enterprises): Advertising", 2001 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, category "Outdoor Advertising", 2002 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Voting results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Calendar of helvetica.r52.ru snapshots in the web archive (archive)