lady.r52.ru was the website of a Nizhny Novgorod women's lingerie boutique called "Lady," located at 2 Gorky Square. The home page on the r52.ru domain already existed in April 2001 and was signed "© 2001 Boutique 'Lady'," with the notes "Coding by Info-online" and "Hosting by R52."[1] About itself, the shop reported that by that time it had already been in business for ten years: "For 10 years now we have lived next to you and for you," the home page stated.[1] In the nn.ru site directory, the resource was listed under the category "Firms (Enterprises): Consumer Goods, Shops: Shops," with the description "Sale of lingerie by world-famous brands."[3]
What the site looked like
The surviving snapshots show two different editions of the home page. In the 2001 version, the entire text was written in the style of a stylized fairy tale: a story about a merchant who "had three daughters," and how, while looking for a gift for the youngest, he wandered into a shop with a "name that was hard to understand — LADY (but it sounds beautiful), and in Russian it means a maiden of no simple lineage."[1] The page had no prices, no phone numbers, and no product catalog — only the invitation "Come visit us more often" and a mention that the lingerie was brought in "from France and Italy."[1]
By August 2002 the site had been rewritten in a businesslike tone. It now featured an address, two phone numbers, an email address, a promise of delivery, and a link to a "Catalog" section.[2] The fairy-tale text disappeared entirely, replaced by a description of the assortment and the salutation "Dear ladies and the gentlemen who love them!!!"[2]
The boutique, its address, and ordering online
The shop was located at 2 Gorky Square, "next to McDonald's," and took calls at 8-312-33-82-94 and 8-312-33-53-43; the email address for orders was lady@r52.ru.[2] The site offered something that was still a novelty for Nizhny Novgorod retail in 2002: the chance "to view, select, order, and receive <...> women's lingerie right from home or the office," with delivery to the address given announced as free — "the service is for now only for residents of Nizhny Novgorod," as the home page stated.[2]
The page listed the assortment in detail: bustiers, corsets, swimsuits, bras, shapewear ("grazia"), bodysuits, sets; models with a "push-up" effect and lingerie by brands from France, Italy, and the Baltic states were mentioned separately.[2] The page described men as frequent guests of the boutique, buying gifts.[2]
Its place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
The site belonged to the r52.ru domain — the Nizhny Novgorod zone — and, judging by the signature at the bottom of the home page, was hosted by the same provider, R52.[1] The boutique made it into the Nizhny Novgorod Internet directory on nn.ru, but did not take part in the ratings race: in the September 2002 snapshot of the "Shops" category, next to "Boutique 'Lady'" it reads "Rating: none," whereas its neighbors on the page — the furniture factory "Narodnaya Mebel" and the "Impulse" chain of stores — show 275 and 101 respectively.[3] In other words, the Counter.nn.ru counter was either not installed on the boutique's pages or registered no measurable traffic; for more on how this data works, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.
The site does not appear in the final vote tally of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day — there is no lady.r52.ru address among the nominees or winners.[4]
How it closed
Our collection of archived home page texts preserves two editions — from April 2001 and August 2002 — and it contains no later versions of the site with substantive changes.[1][2] Today no site exists at lady.r52.ru, and the sources available to us say nothing about the fate of the boutique itself: its last trace remains a page with the phone numbers 33-82-94 and 33-53-43 and a promise of free lingerie delivery within Nizhny Novgorod.[2]
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
- web.archive.org — nn.ru site directory, "Shops" category, 2002 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)