dia.lunn.ru was the website of the Department of International Affairs (DIA) of Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod (NGLU). The earliest saved snapshot is dated 16 October 2002[1], and substantive versions of the page can be traced up to March 2008[3]. The site was entirely in English and addressed foreign students coming to study in Nizhny Novgorod and the university's overseas partners[2].

What the site looked like

The earliest surviving version is an almost empty page: the heading "Department of International Affairs" and a single line about the project's origin — "This web site is designed with the support of European Commission, TACIS-Tempus Program," meaning the site was made with support from the European Commission's TACIS-Tempus Program[1]. Later versions carried a footer reading "Copyright © 2003 DIA. All rights reserved" along with a developer credit — "designed by D'Ost"[2].

By the mid-2000s the home page already carried a full menu of nine sections: DIA Info, International Admissions, Exchange Programs, Projects, Partners, International Office Guide, Educational Advising, News, and Photo Gallery[2]. The saved snapshots show no Russian version, phone numbers, or postal address on the home page — all the text, including the news items, was in English only[2].

The department's news feed

Most of the home page was taken up by a feed of announcements that shows what the department was doing. The earliest surviving entry is from 21 September 2005: the university was presenting its student exchange programs for the 2005/2006 academic year[2]. On 10 May 2006 the feed reported on a trip abroad by the university's leadership, naming Gennady Petrovich Ryabov (listed on the site as President Gennady Ryabov) and Vice-Rector Vladimir Tikhonov (Vice-president Vladimir Tikhonov)[2]. On 22 May 2006 the feed announced a Russian-Korean friendship festival that the university was to host on 23 May[2]. On 13 October 2006 the feed noted the arrival of two groups of students from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Korea) and Sichuan International Studies University (China)[2].

November 2006 produced two entries dated the 17th in a single day: about a visit to the university by a delegation of university representatives and the French embassy in Russia, and about a visit by Lithuania's ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary Rimantas Šidlauskas[2]. The feed's last news item is from 4 December 2007: an announcement of a Russian-language proficiency competition among foreign students studying in Nizhny Novgorod[2]. The March 2008 snapshot shows the feed unchanged, with the same entry from December 2007[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site came to the attention of our Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating through the listings of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004 — a regional contest whose very participation list marks a resource as considered part of the local Nizhny Novgorod Internet[4]. No votes for it were recorded in the published DNI-2004 results[4], nor does it hold a position in the Counter.nn.ru ranking: the site's home page carried no counter. That is expected for a departmental English-language resource whose audience was outside the city.

How it closed

Going by the feed, the site stopped updating after December 2007; the snapshot from 15 March 2008 is the last one with working content[3]. The address then switched to a parking page — according to our records, from 2010; the last snapshot in the web archive is dated 22 December 2010[5]. At the time of checking, the subdomain dia.lunn.ru no longer exists.

Links

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Voting results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Last snapshot in the web archive, 2010 (archive)