lada.nizhny.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod Center of Parental Culture “Lada” (Harmony; CPC “Lada”), an online publication for expectant and new parents. In the nn.ru catalog the site was listed in the section “Society and Nizhny Novgorod Residents: Children, about children, for children” with the description “Advice, recommendations and consultations”[3]. The copyright line in the footer of the home page counted from 1997[1], and the last surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 4 January 2012[2].

What the site looked like

The home page was laid out as a dense portal grid: a dozen and a half menu blocks, each with its own list of links[1]. The “Our Gallery” block led to readers’ photo collections — “You Have to Know Us by Sight!!!”, “My Summer...”, “Oh, Mommy!”, “Our Family”, “Brothers and Sisters”, “The First Ball”, “My Baby — the First Year”, “Dad Is the Best!”, “A Sweet Couple!”, “Children and Food!” — and to the exhibition “Let’s Draw!!!”[1].

Diaries were a genre of their own on the site. The “Diaries...” section was divided into “diaries of expectant mothers” (“A Pregnancy Diary”, “Chronicle of One Pregnancy”) and “mothers’ diaries” — “Diary of a Loving Mother (0–9 months)”, “A Girl Named Vasya (0–1 year)”, “Katya and Butus (0–2 years)”, “Your Baby — One Day in the Life...”, “A Parent’s Diary”[1]. Materials arranged by age were gathered by “Vyrastayka!” (Grow-Up!) with the rubrics “Tot”, “Toddler”, “Preschooler”, “Five and Older” and the permanent page “Baby of the Week”[1]. There was a “Playroom” (“Games for the Body”, “Games for the Mind”, “The Baby’s Development”, “First Universities”) and a reference block “Useful Information” with lists of breastfeeding support services and vaccination centers in cities across Russia, desktop wallpapers, thematic reviews of links and the page “Help the Children!”[1].

The center itself was covered by the “Lada Center” block: “Programs of the Lada Center”, “Our Celebrations”, “Our Newspaper”, “A Photo Report About Us!”, “Our Campaigns”[1]. There was commerce on the site as well — “Our Little Shop” with vitamins and vitamin teas, with the subsections “Treatment Recommendations!”, “Something to Read!”, “New Prices”, “Buy!”[1]. At the bottom of the page stood a disclaimer: “This site gives general information and was created for educational purposes” — with the advice to consult doctors in case of health problems[1].

“Lada” sent out mailings: the newsletter “News from the ‘Lada’ Center” (“news and a thematic issue on Fridays”) was run through Subscribe.Ru, while on the CONTENT.MAIL.RU mailing service it went under the name “News from Lada on MAIL.RU”[1]. The archive of thematic issues, as the home page reported, had been collected “since 2000”[1]. The “From the Editor” column was signed by Anastasia Starynina[1]. A separate block held the external news ticker “Children on the Internet” with the links “add”, “archive”, “rating”, “participating sites”, “join us”[1].

What the site offered Nizhny Novgorod residents

The local layer of the site was set apart in a separate menu block, “For Nizhny Novgorod Residents”, with five links: “Kindergartens and Nurseries”, “Maternity Hospitals — Reviews”, “Childbirth Preparation Courses”, “Telephone Service and Home Visits” and, marked as new, “Our Agency!”[1]. In other words, an editorial team whose topics were nationwide (“Tot”, “Feeding the Baby”, “Child Psychology and Not Only”) kept a city directory close at hand: where to go to give birth, where to prepare for childbirth, which kindergarten to send a child to[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site was registered with the Counter.nn.ru counter under number 10121[3], and by its readings “Lada” led its niche by a wide margin. In the “Children, about children, for children” section of the nn.ru catalog, sorted by rating, in the snapshot of 24 December 2002 “Lada” stood first of four sites with a rating of 1956; its nearest neighbor, the Nizhny Novgorod Resource Center “Childhood Without Violence and Cruelty”, had 85[3]. By 26 August 2003 the section had grown to seven participants, the rating of “Lada” was 1512, and that of the same neighbor was 63[4].

The site had a second listing in the same catalog under a different name — “Medical Advice” — in the section “Firms (Enterprises): Medicine: Medical Information”[5]. There, as of 25 July 2002, it also headed the list: 1737 against 214 for second place, with twenty sites in the section[5]. Against the other participants of both sections these are high counter readings; on how such numbers are to be read, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

How the site came to a halt

“Lada” stopped being updated long before it disappeared. Already in the snapshot of 29 August 2004 the home page was dated 29 December 2003, and the copyright read “© 1997-2003 CPC ‘Lada’”[1]. In the snapshot of 4 January 2012 the copyright already stood at “© 1997-2005”, but the set of materials remained the same — the same “True Stories About Katya and Antoshka”, the same “Gymnastics for Pregnant Women”, the same signature of Anastasia Starynina under the editor’s column[2]. The only thing on the page that stayed fresh was someone else’s news ticker, “Children on the Internet”, which pulled in headlines from late December and early January: “Christmas Recipes”, “Breastfeeding During the Mother’s Illness”, “Diapers Between Lecture Notes”, “Fairy-Tale Therapy Sessions in Kindergarten”[2].

In the footer of that same 2012 snapshot, below the line about the developers, extraneous links appeared — “Repair of Scania trucks” and “Expert examination and appraisal services”[2]: the typical trace of link selling from an abandoned page.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archived)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2012 (archived)
  3. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, section “Society and Nizhny Novgorod Residents: Children, about children, for children”, 24 December 2002 (archived)
  4. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, section “Children, about children, for children”, 26 August 2003 (archived)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, section “Firms (Enterprises): Medicine: Medical Information”, 25 July 2002 (archived)