admcity.nnov.ru was the address of the official website of the administration of the city of Nizhny Novgorod, known from web archive snapshots taken between 2000 and 2019. The earliest saved page is dated 10 May 2000 and was called “Nizhny Novgorod. Official Information Server”[1]; the last snapshot was made on 18 January 2019, and by that time the same address opened a city portal under the name “НижнийНовгород.РФ” (NizhnyNovgorod.RF)[3]. In the nn.ru catalogue, from which the sample for our Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating was compiled, the server is described in a single line: “Official server of the Administration of the City of Nizhny Novgorod”.

From an “information server” to a city portal

Little survives from the 2000 snapshot: the page presented itself as “Nizhny Novgorod. Official Information Server”, with no description of its sections[1]. Seven years later, in the snapshot of 2 February 2007, it was already a fully developed municipal portal with a multi-level menu, a site map, a weather block and an English-language version[2].

The left-hand column of 2007 was divided into a dozen large blocks[2]. “Nizhny Novgorod” covered the city charter, civic symbols, general information, history, views of the city, “For guests of the city”, a city map and city services. “Administration” covered its structure, its leadership, administration reports, reception days, telephone numbers, departments, district administrations and public reception offices. “News” covered administration news, the operational briefing, the plan for the week, events, photo reports, competitions, “New on the site” and a press review. “The City Today” gathered the city districts, education, health care, culture, sport, employment, international relations, architecture, ecology, targeted programmes and an information centre; “The City in Figures” covered city finances, the economy, trade, municipal services and statistics. A separate “Real Estate” block led to news from the KUGI (the Committee for the Management of City Property), reference information and a “questions and answers” section. The menu closed with “Legislation”, a site search, the section “Let us talk…” with frequently asked questions, forums and online conferences, and links to internet resources[2].

The home page of 2 February 2007

The snapshot captured an ordinary working day of the city authorities. In the news feed there were reports that “four more markets of Nizhny Novgorod have presented their reconstruction plans”, that the head of the city Vadim Bulavinov had handed a housing viewing order to a family in which triplets had been born (31 January), had held a meeting on the improvement of the Fedorovsky Embankment (30 January) and had decided to allocate about 22 million roubles from the city budget to support low-income families[2]. Alongside them were transport notices: on changes to the itineraries of bus routes T-118 and T-7, on route changes in the “V. Pechyory” (Verkhnie Pechyory) microdistrict, on the opening of tram route No. 417 and on the extension of service on 22 city electric transport routes until 00:00[2].

A noticeable part of the home page was taken up by municipal procurement notices — tenders and requests for price quotations for security services for City Children's Clinical Hospital No. 1, for cosmetic repairs to offices in the building of the Prioksky district administration, for repairs to the fourth-floor corridor and the installation of a cable telephone network in the building of the Sovetsky district administration, for routine repairs at kindergartens No. 199, No. 115 and No. 114 in the Moskovsky district and at City Children's Hospital No. 42, and also the competitive selection of developers for land plots in the Nizhegorodsky district, in the area of the Grebnoy Kanal (Rowing Canal) embankment[2].

The home page also carried a local history block, “today many years ago”: on 2 February 1908 the painting “The Appeal of Minin” by K. E. Makovsky was presented to Nizhny Novgorod by its author; on 2 February 1932 the S. Ordzhonikidze aircraft plant (“Sokol”, Falcon) began work[2]. The events listing offered the international children's drawing competition “Young Artist”, the campaign “Son. Father. Fatherland” in the Sormovsky district from 1 to 24 February and a dominoes championship for veterans in the Sovetsky district on 3 February from 12:00 to 14:00[2].

Its place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In our sample the site's record comes from the nn.ru catalogue and not from Counter.nn.ru: neither a position in the counter's rating nor votes at the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day are recorded for admcity.nnov.ru. That sets it apart from the commercial projects of the same period, for which a place in the counter was currency: the municipal server existed outside the competition for traffic and did not measure itself against the rest of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet. The address, on the other hand, turned out to be long-lived: the snapshots begin in May 2000[1], and its lifespan in the study's list is given as nineteen years, 2000–2019.

“НижнийНовгород.РФ” and the end of the address

The last known snapshot is that of 18 January 2019. The page at admcity.nnov.ru was by then called “НижнийНовгород.РФ — the official website of the administration of Nizhny Novgorod” and presented itself as “the official city portal”[3]. The menu had grown to several dozen items and was divided into the blocks “City” (industry, housing and utilities, urban planning, urban improvement, municipal cemeteries, transport, ecology, “The 150th anniversary of Maxim Gorky”), “Municipality” (the head of the city, the city administration, district administrations, the City Duma, municipal services, anti-corruption measures, open data), “Auctions”, “News”, “Reception Office” and “Municipal Service”[3]. A version for the visually impaired had appeared, together with registration and log-in, links to Gosuslugi (the state services portal) and an invitation to write a letter to the head of the city administration[3]. In a prominent place stood the priority project “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment” and a notice that Vladimir Panov would carry out weekly inspections of the courtyards and public spaces being improved[3].

After January 2019 our material contains no snapshots of the home page at this address; in the list of the archival study admcity.nnov.ru is recorded as a dead address with a lifespan of 2000–2019. The title of the last snapshot itself shows where the site went: the city portal changed its name to “НижнийНовгород.РФ”, and the old service address ceased to be its public face[3].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2019 (archive)