mts-nn.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod Intercity Telephone Station (NMTS), located at 603022, Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarin Avenue, 11.[1] Besides reference information on intercity and international communications, the station offered Nizhny Novgorod residents dial-up internet access: its own modem pool, access cards, and a mail domain.[1] Judging by the copyright mark on the 2000 snapshot, the site launched in 1999.[1] In 2005 the station became a separate section of the website of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of OJSC "VolgaTelecom", and its own address was closed down.[2]

What the site looked like

The home page opened with the heading "Nizhny Novgorod Intercity Telephone Station"; as the home page put it, "Welcome to the server of the Nizhny Novgorod Intercity Telephone Station!".[1] The menu consisted of seven sections: "Home", "Codes and Rates", "Rules", "STK", "Internet", "Internet Cards", and "Other".[1]

Right on the home page, without registration, the connection settings were published: access phone number 8w2850, login and password mts, DNS 213.24.90.3, proxy server proxy.mts-nn.ru, port 3128.[1] Below was an "MTS News" feed with a link to the news archive, and the page ended with the station's postal address, a "Our Details" link, and the line "Information phone: 000".[1] A separate notice on the home page asked that information about planned terrorist acts be reported to the High-Tech Crime Unit (UBPSVT) of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Internal Affairs Directorate (GUVD) at phone numbers 31-66-94 and 31-64-47 or to uvdbpsvt@sandy.ru.[1]

Internet access, cards, and rates

From March 6, 2000, the station expanded the modem pool on the shared line 8w2850 to 90 lines.[1] From April 18, 2000, residents of Nizhny Novgorod were given a demo login — phone number 340040, username and password demo — allowing them to review rates and terms of service on the site itself; going beyond the site, receiving mail, and other services were not possible through it.[1] From July 1, 2000, internet access cards with denominations of 3, 5, 10, and 25 hours went on sale, with prices listed excluding sales tax and VAT.[1]

On the same date the station closed the mail domain mts.nnov.ru and moved users to mts-nn.ru, warning that mail to the old domain would no longer be delivered.[1] Rates were revised twice that year: on February 15, 2000, international call rates changed, and from August 1 the internet access fee was lowered.[1] On August 28, 2000, the station warned customers of possible interruptions in the access card and demo login systems due to preventive maintenance.[1]

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the Counter.nn.ru catalog and ranking snapshot for 2000, the site was listed in the "Companies" section with a score of 463.[6] In the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the turn of the century, mts-nn.ru was not only a calling card of the telecom company but also an entry point to the network: access was purchased with an hourly-denomination card and dialed up by modem over a city phone number.[1] For more on how the catalog snapshot used here is organized, see the article "Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating"; on the annual review of local sites, see the article "Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day".

How it closed

On May 7, 2005, a new official website of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of OJSC "VolgaTelecom" opened at www.nnov.vt.ru; the NMTS was represented on it as a separate section, and its services were described in the "Service Catalog" section.[2] A snapshot from October 13, 2006, found only a redirect page on mts-nn.ru: as the home page put it, "In 20 seconds you will be automatically redirected to the new official website", and the old site was promised to remain available "for about a month".[2]

The address itself afterward remained occupied by a service hosting placeholder. In March 2020 it served a "Not found" page reading "The address you requested, www.mts-nn.ru:80, does not exist on the server", with a round-the-clock technical support phone number +7 (8314) 30-30-94, an address webmaster@mts-nn.ru for hosting inquiries, and a link to the home page of OJSC "VolgaTelecom".[3] The same placeholder stood in September 2022[4] and in March 2026[5] — over two decades, nothing but an error message has appeared in place of the site. The last snapshot of the domain in the web archive is dated May 14, 2026.[6]

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2006 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2020 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2022 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, 2026 (archive)
  6. proto.nnov.ec — Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet based on counter.nn.ru ranking data (archive)