orienteering.nn.ru was a Nizhny Novgorod website about sport orienteering, hosted in the nn.ru domain. In 2011 it was called "Nizhny Novgorod Orienteering"[1], and by the mid-2010s it had become the official website of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Sport Orienteering Federation (FSO NO), with the subtitle "Everything about orienteering in Nizhny Novgorod Region"[2]. The site maintained a calendar and results of regional events, published documents from the federation's presidium, and posted announcements of competitions in Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, Bor, Vorsma, and the region's districts[1][2][3]. According to the Web Archive's index, the domain's first snapshot is dated 28 April 2001, and the last one 27 January 2020[5].

An orienteers' portal: the 2011 snapshot

In August 2011 the home page was organized as a community news portal. The top menu was divided into sections "News," "FSO NO," "Competitions" (calendar and results), "Service" with maps and routes, "Media," "Articles and Documents," "Links," "Nizhny Novgorod Rogaine," and "Archive"; the names of multi-day events — "Volga Expanses," "Volga Autumn," "Vacha Azimuth" — and a cycling championship had their own separate entries[1]. The sidebar carried a "Help for beginners" block with links to the history and rules of orienteering, an image of map symbols, a list of Nizhny Novgorod clubs and sections, and a forum, as well as a weather widget that returned a PHP service error alongside the forecast[1].

The "Media" section held participants' blogs — Galina Vinogradova, Jegor Kostylev, Valentina Novikova, Evgenia Krasnoyarova — while the home page announced a "Live call with Andrei Lamov, right after the first stage of the World Cup"[1]. The footer listed partners: "Rogaine in Russia," KSO "Arina" (Nizhny Novgorod), "Magnitnaya Strelka" (Dzerzhinsk), SK "Sintez" (Voronezh), OK "Tsement" (Vladimir)[1]. Discussion was lively: news items carried 11, 16, 17, and 20 comments[1].

The news feed of that snapshot was a local chronicle of the season: the region's individual championship on 13-14 August in Perevozsky District, in the Ichalkovsky pine forest, with a chartered bus at 100 rubles per person; a rogaine on 20 August in the Artyomovskie meadows on a new map by Nikolai Mironov; a night rogaine "From Dusk Till Dawn" on 23-24 July in Borsky District, where, as the home page reported, "more than 50 participants went into the forest in search of control points"[1]. The same page published minutes No. 10 of the FSO NO presidium meeting of 18 July 2011 and a report on a meeting between the federation presidium's chairman Nikolai Shipov and the region's minister of sport Viktor Kharitonov; Shipov held the "Volga Expanses" multi-day event for the 36th time in 2011[1].

The federation's site: 2013-2018

Later the site was moved onto a blog engine and reformatted as the federation's website. In the 2016 snapshot the list of post archives began in December 2013 and ran month by month through April 2016[2]. The menu became functional: "About the Federation" (presidium, member list, reports, orienteering in the region's districts, documents), "Competitions" with results by year starting from 2013, "Coaching Council," "Contacts," "Media Library," and a guestbook[2]. Posts were signed by various authors — Nikolai Shipov, Dmitry Trubnikov, Maxim Ekishev, Ivan Povyshev, Konstantin Zybov[2][3].

The site also functioned as the federation's office. In April 2016 it announced a commission to admit participants to the regional championship and Cup — 21 April, from 10:00 to 13:00, at sports school SDYuSSHOR No. 12, address: Nizhny Novgorod, Yubileynaya Street, building 35[2]. At the same address on 18 October 2018 the presidium convened, and for 1 December 2018 a reporting conference was scheduled with an eight-item agenda, including adoption of a new version of the FSO NO charter[3]. By 2018 the menu had gained "Judges' Board," "Judges of Nizhny Novgorod Region," "Judges' Seminars," and "Audit Commission"[3].

A separate section gathered an archive of all-Russian competitions held in the region: the Russia Cup in ski orienteering and orienteering triathlon, 3-8 January 2015; the Russian championship and junior championship in ski disciplines, 1-6 February 2017, in the village of Dachny near Dzerzhinsk; the Russian championship in cross disciplines, 3-7 June 2018, in Vorsma[3].

A place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The domain orienteering.nn.ru belonged to the Nizhny Novgorod nn.ru zone, and all its material was regional: event addresses, the sports school on Yubileynaya, the federation's presidium[2][3]. At the same time the site was not a notable name of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: it does not appear in the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote in 2004[4], nor does it have a recorded rank in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating — it entered our data through the nn.ru directory, not through traffic figures (see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating). An ordinary fate for a niche trade site: a narrow, steady audience and no public renown — even though the protocols and maps of regional events accumulated nowhere else.

How it closed

The Web Archive captured the home page from 28 April 2001; the last snapshot is dated 27 January 2020[5]. There are no later snapshots in our sample; the address is marked as non-functioning. Its content — calendars, protocols, splits, regulations, and orienteers' blogs spanning a decade and a half — survives only in archived copies.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2016 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2018 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org (archive)