niimp.r52.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod joint-stock company "NIIMESTPROM" (Research Institute for Design and Technology of Local Industry), which was located in Nizhny Novgorod at 3 Marshala Kazakova Street[1]. The site was a single "About the Company" landing page in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone r52.ru; its text, marked with a 2001 copyright, remained unchanged at least until the end of 2003[1][2]. By March 2005, the address returned only a standard hosting placeholder page[3].

The institute and its specialization

According to the home page, the joint-stock company was the successor to the Research Institute for Design and Technology of Local Industry of the RSFSR ("ROSNIIMESTPROM"), established under Decree No. 921 of the Government of the RSFSR of 18 November 1966[1]. The entire text of the site is a list of what the institute "carries out," without histories, reports, or a list of clients.

The first line of work named was the development of formulations, technologies, and production specifications for paint and varnish materials — varnishes, paints, enamels, drying oils, primers, putties, and mastics — as well as methods for testing and determining their properties. Next came household chemical products (detergents, bleaching and cleaning agents) and plastic goods, including composite and filled plastics, with processing of waste from plastic-goods production[1].

A separate section was devoted to small enterprises: designing technologies and equipment for wood processing in the manufacture of consumer goods — sawing, drying, machining — and production of wooden household items, including from waste. The institute also took on technologies and equipment for the packaging of paint-and-varnish materials and household chemicals, and produced prototype samples and pilot batches of lines for manufacturing metal containers (cans) for such products[1].

The list closed with garment-industry topics: modeling and design of sewn products, including embroidered ones, sewing of prototype samples and pilot batches, design of technology and equipment for preparatory and cutting production, as well as development of design and engineering documentation for such equipment and for the production of household goods from metal and wood and the processing of secondary raw materials[2].

What the site looked like

The menu consisted of a single item — "About the Company" — which was also the entire content of the site: a heading, a decoding of the abbreviation, information about the predecessor institute, a list of activities, and contact details[1]. The archived page text contains no news feed, no price list, no feedback form, and no visitor counter.

The contact block gave the postal code and address — 603167, Nizhny Novgorod, 3 Marshala Kazakova Street — the phone numbers (8-312) 41-17-32 and 41-07-92, fax (8-312) 41-17-33, and the email address niimp@r52.ru on the same hosting as the site itself[1]. Below were named three senior officials: General Director Yuri Vasilyevich Sporov, Chief Engineer Oleg Dmitrievich Pozdnyakov, and Deputy General Director for Science and Development Alexander Alekseevich Fomin[1]. The page footer carried the copyright notice "© 2001 JSC 'NIIMESTPROM'" and two service credits — "Coding by Info-online" and "Hosting by r52.ru"[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site belonged to the mass layer of corporate landing pages that made up the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the early 2000s: an organization would rent space from a local provider, order a one-page site, and never return to it. In the nn.ru directory, the institute was listed in the manufacturing category with the description "Design of technologies and equipment" — it was through this entry that it entered our Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating that we have, the domain niimp.r52.ru does not appear, and no traffic figures for it were recorded. In the results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day 2004 vote, which lists the nominees and the votes they received, the institute's site is likewise absent[4].

How it closed

The last known snapshot with content was made on 28 December 2003 and repeats the 2001 page word for word[2]. On the next recorded visit, 7 March 2005, the site was replaced by a standard provider placeholder: "The domain name www.niimp.r52.ru points to this IP address, but the virtual host is not configured," signed "R52.RU Administration"[3]. The wording means the domain record still pointed to the hosting server, but the site itself was no longer on it.

At the time this entry was compiled, the address niimp.r52.ru does not open: the subdomain no longer exists. What remains of the site are archived snapshots of the home page from 2001-2003 — in effect, the institute's only surviving business card on the web.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — r52.ru hosting placeholder, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting results, 2004 (archive)