nik.r52.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod furniture factory Nizhegorodmebel i K (Nizhny Novgorod Furniture and Co., abbreviated NIK), which lived in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone r52.ru. The surviving substantive snapshots of the home page date to 2007: they present the site as a manufacturer of upholstered furniture for the home, name the general director as Andrei Nikolaevich Kanisev, and offer visitors a catalog, a price list, and fabric collections[1][2]. In the nn.ru catalog, through which the site entered our sample, it was listed under the name "Kubanets: production of upholstered and cabinet furniture," and the description presented the manufacturing association Nizhegorodmebel i K as offering more than 20 sets of upholstered and cabinet furniture.

What the site looked like

The home page opened with the NIK logo and a horizontal menu of seven sections: "About the Company," "News," "Catalog," "Price List," "Tips," "Fabrics," and "Contacts"[1]. A separate list showed the furniture collections — "Tête-à-tête," "Magic of Classics," "Megapolis," "World of Childhood," and "Kitchen Corners"[1]. The center of the page was occupied by a welcome message from the company's director, with a feed of short production news to the right.

As the home page stated, "our factory has specialized in the production of upholstered furniture for the home for more than 9 years," and the company had "established and successfully operating design bureau and product quality control departments"[1]. It also said the factory produced some components itself in order to keep the selling price low, that it was ready to deliver furniture "to any city in Russia and the neighboring countries by rail or by vehicles from its own fleet," and that the site's primary audience was wholesale partners, to whom flexible payment options were offered[1]. There was no retail shop, shopping cart, or order form on the home page: the site functioned as a manufacturer's showcase and an entry point for dealers.

The postal address and phone number are not visible in the surviving snapshots of the home page — they lived on a separate "Contacts" page, which is not part of our material. The only indirect mention of them is a news item from July 23, 2007: "As of June 30 we are switching to a new number!"[1]. There were no visitor counters on the home page; at the bottom of the page were links to industry directories — "KLUM. Catalog of Upholstered Furniture," the furniture portal Ru-mebel, and "Catalog of Furniture Websites"[1].

Production feed

The site's news block was kept not about the company in general but about specific products, and it shows what the factory was working on in the summer and autumn of 2007. On July 20 it reported the launch of the new "Eva" 6 sofa from the "Tête-à-tête" collection; on July 24, a new "euro sofa bed" on a "tick-tock" mechanism called "Senior"-8[1]. By September the feed had been updated: on August 23 it was announced that the "Uyut" 2 and "Persei" models were discontinued; on September 18, of a price increase from October 1, 2007, "due to the rising cost of many materials and components"; on September 19, of a redesign of the "Sonata 3" model, which received tall fabric-upholstered armrests, two cushions, and two sleeping-area sizes[2]. The price list could be downloaded right there on the site.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site belonged to the mass layer of corporate representations of Nizhny Novgorod Internet — small showcases of local manufacturers at the third level of the r52.ru zone, set up for the sake of dealers and catalogs rather than traffic. No data on the site's position in the Counter.nn.ru rating is recorded in our counter samples; in the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, the domain nik.r52.ru does not appear[5]. The overall picture of the layer to which the site belonged is examined in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

How it closed

In our sample the Web Archive index counts 32 snapshots of the address, the earliest from April 16, 2003; substantive copies of the home page survive only for 2007. By June 2023 the address served a hosting placeholder page instead of the site: "Domain not added in the panel," "Site is hosted by REG.RU"[3]. The same placeholder is present on the last surviving snapshot, dated April 9, 2024[4]. The exact date when the site stopped being updated cannot be determined from our material: between the 2007 snapshots and the 2023 placeholder, no surviving copies of the home page exist.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2023 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2024 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)