kp.nnov.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod bureau of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda (in its own publications, "KP-NN"). The home page was titled "'Komsomolskaya Pravda' in Nizhny Novgorod" and served as a feed of announcements for newspaper articles[1]. The Nizhny Novgorod focus is visible right on the page: the editorial office invited readers to reach it on pager 30-30-30, subscriber "Komsomolka," and by phone at 37-29-26, and the subjects of its stories were Nizhny Novgorod districts, enterprises, and officials[3]. The surviving snapshots of the home page span the period from January 6, 2002 to December 15, 2003.

How the site was laid out

The top of the page held a poll with a "Results" button. In early 2002 readers were asked: "How did you learn about this site?" — with the options "from the newspaper," "from acquaintances," "from a banner," "other," "don't remember..."[1]. By the autumn of 2003 the question had changed to "What is your social status?" with the options "Student," "Employed," "Retired," "Unemployed"[3].

The menu stayed the same across both years and consisted of six items: "Home," "Advertising rates," "Advertising projects," "Contact the editorial office," "Readership," "Terms for placing advertising on the KP site"; the footer repeated the same set as the line "Home | Price list | Advertising projects | Contact the editorial office | Readership"[1]. Four of the six items concerned selling advertising: the site was built not as an independent publication but as a showcase for the newspaper and its advertising department.

Below came the feed: a headline with a subheading, a date in the format "26.07.02," a lead paragraph, and a "[ Details... ]" link[2]. The page ended with an "Announcement" block — "Read it in our newspaper" (later "Read it only with us") — retelling stories from the upcoming issue, including ones not tied to Nizhny Novgorod[1]. Occasionally the home page carried a photo credit — for example, "Photo by Andrei ZABRODIN"[4].

What Komsomolskaya Pravda in Nizhny wrote about

The snapshots show what the city bureau covered. In January 2002 the home page carried a note about currency deposits — "Nizhny Novgorod banks met the euro year fully prepared," as the home page put it — a report on the opening, on January 7, of the 9th "Christmas Days of Orthodox Culture" arts festival, and a report on the New Year's load on the 01, 02, and 03 emergency services[1]. In the summer of 2002 there was a report on hazardous city beaches on the Greben Canal, the charity drive "Get Through to a Heart" for the benefit of children at the Yagubovsky orphanage in Buturlinsky District, and a note on an awards ceremony for trade workers, where certificates were presented by acting governor Yuri Sentyurin and the chairman of the regional Legislative Assembly, Yevgeny Lyulin[2].

In the autumn of 2003 the feed kept to the same set of genres: a hockey report on Nizhny Novgorod's Torpedo defeating Togliatti's Lada, an exhibition of the Komsomol-badge collection of Nizhny Novgorod resident Abrek Dudelzak at the Yupiter concert hall for the 85th anniversary of the Komsomol, a "hotline" with the director of the city health department, Vladimir Lazarev, a note on "werewolves" in the regional Internal Affairs Directorate, and a report from the birthday celebration of the renovated Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, where the bureau handed out "Take a Ride with Komsomolskaya Pravda!" coupons for a free horse-drawn carriage ride[3]. In December 2003 the home page carried a "hotline" with the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Vadim Bulavinov, a note on the suspended restoration of the churches of Ilyinskaya Sloboda, a report on triplets born to Lyudmila Iosim of Semyonovsky District, and news of a pensioner's death on the thin ice of Lake Svetloyarskoye in Sormovsky District[4].

A separate line of work was engagement with readers. The newspaper ran a column called "Reader — Newspaper — Reader" and, as the home page put it, "we leave no question, no request unanswered"[3]. The same page hosted the contest "Guess Your Apartment!": every Wednesday the newspaper printed an apartment number, and the first person to get through to the editorial office between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. won a frame for a family photo[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site belonged to that layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet where an online presence served a print publication: the home page shows no sign of its own web services, forum, or issue archive, while four of the six menu items led to the price list and advertising terms[1]. The domain does not appear in our samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating, and we have no data on its traffic; it made it into our census via the nn.ru directory, where it was listed as a social and political publication (on the methodology, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating). kp.nnov.ru does not appear in the surviving results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote[5].

How it closed

The last surviving snapshot of the home page is dated December 15, 2003; at that point the site was still running normally — a fresh feed for December 9–11, the same poll, and the same menu[4]. What became of the address afterward is not established from the materials available to us: our sample has no information about a move to another domain.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, January 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, August 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, October 2003 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, December 2003 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)