nimel.nnov.ru was the site of Nizhegorodskaya Mezhotraslevaya Laboratoriya LLC ("Nimel"), a Nizhny Novgorod firm that sold video surveillance systems, security and fire alarm systems, radio communication equipment, and information-protection hardware, and also took on the design, installation, and maintenance of integrated security systems. As the "About the company" block on the home page put it, the company was registered in December 1991, was located at 603000, N. Novgorod, Zalomova Street, 10, and took calls and faxes at (8312) 34-45-27 and 34-45-29, with mail going to nimel@rol.ru[1]. The home page was captured by the web archive in 27 different months: the first saved version is dated 23 October 2000, the last — 7 October 2013[2].

What the site looked like

A snapshot of the home page from 7 July 2007 shows a typical corporate showcase site. The left-hand menu listed fourteen product lines: video surveillance systems, digital and computer video recorders, computer audio recorders, video capture cards, security and fire alarm systems, access control systems, gate automation, radio communication equipment, metal detectors, dictaphones, information-protection hardware, computer networks, and web design[1]. The service navigation consisted of the sections "Home," "Special offers," "Price list," "News archive," "About the company," "Contacts," "Forum," "Links," "Files," and "Site search"; at the bottom was the developer's credit — "made by TeeM"[1].

The central part of the home page was given over to lists of models with their manufacturers: the video recorders Polyvision PVDR-042 and PVDR-161, Infinity DVARS-942 and DVARS-1642, DynaColor D7963 MuxDVR, TeleXper TX-168-4 and TX-168-8, Panda DVR TA-412 "from 4,950 rubles"; miniature recording devices — the mAVR video recorder and Edic-Mini dictaphones; walk-through metal detectors, GARRETT metal detectors, and AKA hand-held screening metal detectors; wireless JABLOTRON security systems with signal transmission over a GSM channel, and site security complexes based on CCU6225 GSM controllers[1]. Separate blocks covered "Radio communications" (portable radios, vehicle-mounted and base stations, accessories), "Information protection" (search equipment, dictaphone-recording jammers, PC information protection), and "Anti-terror and screening"[1].

The company wrote about itself that it had started by supplying information-protection equipment, then opened related lines of business and was among the first to bring "security television" systems to market, and that the experience it had built up let it become, as the same block put it, "one of the leaders on the Nizhny Novgorod market for radio communication systems, information protection, and integrated security systems"[1]. Its clients were named as security services, security agencies, law enforcement bodies, and private individuals[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site's traces in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet come down to the nn.ru directory. The firm made it into the directory before the web archive began saving its page: in a snapshot of the old rubricator from 3 June 2000, in the "Firms (Enterprises): Security" section, there is already a line reading "Nizhegorodskaya Mezhotraslevaya Laboratoriya LLC," linking to nimel.nnov.ru, with the description "Supply of information-protection equipment. Security television systems," the mark "Working," a verification date of 02.03.2000, and a rating of 0.00[9].

In a later nn.ru rubricator, the site's card appears in two sections. The main one was in "Firms (Enterprises): Security, security systems": in a snapshot from 22 May 2002 — with the description "Supply of information-protection equipment. Security television systems." and the mark "Rating: none"[3]. A second card, under the name "Nimel, LLC," was listed in the section "Firms (Enterprises): Consumer goods, Stores: Stores: Audio-Video, photo," where on 24 November 2003 it occupied the fourth line of fourteen with a rating of 23[7].

The rating figure the rubricator displayed next to each card was a link to the Counter.nn.ru counter — the site's number there was 10996[6]. The number did not appear for Nimel right away: in May 2002 its line read "Rating: none"[3]. By 2003 the figure was present and fluctuated noticeably: 39 in the snapshot from 30 July[4], 16 in the snapshot from 26 August[5], and 23 in the snapshot from 17 September[6]. In the September listing, sorted by rating, "Nimel LLC" stood first among the section's 22 sites, ahead of the second line by more than threefold (which had 7), while fifteen of the twenty-two security firms had no rating at all[6]. No separate lines for the site are recorded in our samples of counter statistics; on the rating itself see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

The firm bought advertising on nn.ru: in both sections its card was displayed with a 468×30 banner linking to the site[6][7], and in the banner strip at the top of rubricator pages — including in sections with no connection to security, such as "Travel agencies" — a square banner reading "NIMEL Security Systems" rotated[10]. At the same time, the site does not appear in the surviving results table for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote in 2004[8].

How it closed

Signs of decline are already visible in the 2007 snapshot: the "Latest news" block on the home page opened with its most recent item, dated 17 February 2006, about a price cut on Infinity video recorders, followed by entries from 10 November 2005 about vGuard card drivers for Windows XP and from 14 July 2005 about additions to the site's content[1]. In other words, the page a visitor saw on 7 July 2007 had not been updated for almost a year and a half.

According to our data, the further fate of the address is limited to the web archive: the last saved version of nimel.nnov.ru is dated 7 October 2013, there are no later records of the site, and no move to another domain has been recorded[2].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Snapshots of nimel.nnov.ru in the web archive (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Security, security systems," 2002 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Security, security systems," July 2003 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Security, security systems," August 2003 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Security, security systems," September 2003 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Stores: Audio-Video, photo," 2003 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Security" section, June 2000 (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — nn.ru rubricator, "Travel agencies," July 2003 (archive)