aquarium.r52.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod firm Akvarium-Servis (Aquarium-Service), which sold aquariums and pet supplies, made aquariums, fountains, and ponds to order, and took them on for further maintenance. The site operated under the name "Mir Akvariuma" ("World of the Aquarium"): that was how it was signed in the home page's title and in the copyright line "© 2004 'Mir Akvariuma'"[1]. The Nizhny Novgorod connection is visible in the snapshots themselves: in April 2006 the firm's shop moved from the regional House of Hunter and Angler on Belinskogo, 9b, to Vaneyeva Street, house 25/88, phone 78-59-50[1], and by the 2010s the home page's title read "Home: Akvarium Servis, pet shop, Nizhny Novgorod," with the line "Nizhny Novgorod" standing next to the phone numbers[2]. The domain belonged to the Nizhny Novgorod zone r52.ru. The home page texts survive in the web archive for the years 2007–2016.

"Mir Akvariuma": a mid-2000s site

An early version, captured by the web archive on 6 August 2007, was set up as a storefront with a side menu of ten sections: "About the Company," "Aquariums," "Marine Aquarium," "Imported Aquarium," "Exclusive Aqua-Systems" (as spelled in the original), "Fountains and Ponds," "Fish and Plants," "Birds," "Animals," "Service"[1]. At the top were the links "Write to Us" and "Ask a Question," and separately a note titled "What You Need to Know When Buying an Aquarium." As the home page put it, "an aquarium is not just an element of interior decor, an aquarium is, above all, a certain state of the soul"[1].

The main space on the home page was taken up by a feed of short news items from 2005–2006, which gives a good sense of the firm's range of activities. On 25 October 2005: "If you don't have the time or you're tired of caring for your aquarium, entrust it to specialists"[1]. On 21 November 2005 — about making custom aquariums, fountains, and rock gardens of any shape and size, "turnkey, with the option of further maintenance"[1]. On 10 January 2006: "ATTENTION! NEW! For the first time in Nizhny, marine aquariums. Exotic fish, corals, live rock, invertebrates"[1]. On 18 January the firm announced parrots, canaries, and wild birds, cages and aviaries; on 22 February, fountains and ponds to order; on 26 April, the pet shop's move to Vaneyeva and the news that "this is now a new shop of European standard," with aquariums, accessories, fish, birds, exotic animals, and feed[1].

"Akvarium Servis" in the 2010s: catalog and online store

By the snapshot of 23 July 2013 the site had been completely rebuilt and changed its sign to "Akvarium Servis, pet shop." The navigation had grown into a product catalog: "About the Company," "Our Work," "Catalog" with the subsections "Aquariums," "Fish," "Aqua-Design," "Aquarium Equipment," "Terrariums," "Retail Equipment," "Exotic Animals," "Feed," followed by "Services," "Promotions," "Contacts," and "Online Store"[2]. The landline number disappeared from the home page; in its place, under the word "Consultations," stood two mobile phone numbers, 8-951-903-1172 and 8-951-905-2035[2].

By this time the news feed had shrunk to a few lines a year and had become entirely commercial: on 18 February 2013 — "Holiday Discounts," on 11 July 2013 — "Summer in Full Swing! 10% Discounts"[2]. In the snapshot of 18 February 2015 the home page had only a single entry left, from 24 April 2014: koi carp had gone on sale, "which are excellent for keeping in garden ponds"[3].

A place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site entered our census from the directory of the nn.ru catalog, where it was listed under the name "Mir Akvariuma" with a description of its services — from designing and building an aquarium to aqua-design and further maintenance. It does not appear in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating: our data records neither a position nor votes for it. In the results table of the 2004 Den Nizhegorodskogo Interneta (Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet) vote, the domain aquarium.r52.ru is likewise absent[5]. This was the typical fate of a small trading firm's industry website in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: it existed for its own customers, not for a line in a counter (an overview of how the rating worked is in the article Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating).

How it closed

The last surviving snapshots show a site that had stopped updating. On 4 November 2016 the home page looked exactly as it had a year and a half earlier, and the most recent news item on it was still "Pre-New-Year Sale!" from 26 November 2015[4]. The web archive captured the domain itself both earlier and later: the earliest snapshot in our sample is dated 1 March 2001, the latest — 7 October 2022[6], but no home page texts from those years are in the census. In our census the domain is marked as no longer existing; whether the firm moved to another address online and whether it is still operating today does not follow from the surviving material.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2015 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2016 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Snapshots of the domain aquarium.r52.ru in the web archive (archive)