roskosmetika.r52.ru — the website of ZAO RosKosmetika, a manufacturer of hair-care products and household chemicals, that operated in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone r52.ru in the early 2000s. The Nizhny Novgorod connection follows from the page itself: the company stated "We have warehouses in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and Dzerzhinsk," and the page ended with the lines "Coding by R52.RU" and "Hosting by r52.ru" — both the making of the site and its hosting were credited to the Nizhny Novgorod platform r52.ru[1]. The copyright notice on the page read "© 2001 RosKosmetika"[1]. Two snapshots of the site survive in the web archive — from December 29, 2001, and January 25, 2002[1][2].
What the site looked like
Both snapshots are of the home page, and their text matches word for word[1][2]. The preserved page is a short commercial pitch: it contains neither a product catalog nor a price list. It opened with the greeting "Dear ladies and gentlemen!," followed by a company introduction: "We are a manufacturer and are pleased to offer you a range of products under the RosKosmetika brand. These are hair-care products and household chemicals"[1]. The list of products was not given by the page itself but by its entry in the nn.ru catalog, from whose listing the site made it into this census in the first place: shampoos, herbal shampoos, soap, bleaches, and car-care chemicals.
The bulk of the page was taken up by a list titled "Five reasons to buy RosKosmetika products." In it the company cited bottles "made on Japanese equipment using modern technology"; "the use of natural, high-quality raw materials from Israel and Italy"; competitive prices; discounts; and the possibility of free delivery[1].
The preserved text of the page contains no postal address, no phone number, and no e-mail address[1][2].
Ordering terms
The substantive part of the pitch concerned discount and delivery terms. A 4% discount applied to orders of 15,000 rubles, and a 10% discount to orders over 50,000 rubles[1]. The company promised delivery for orders of the same 15,000 rubles, "or, for any amount, with a passing vehicle"[1]. Separate lines read "We will consider your proposals" and "Barter is possible"[1]. The pitch closed with the phrase "We look forward to mutually beneficial cooperation!"[1].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
The site belongs to the most numerous and least conspicuous layer of the early Nizhny Novgorod Internet: a business calling-card page, hosted with a local provider and listed in the nn.ru catalog directory. It made it into the census specifically through that catalog's listing: in the Counter.nn.ru counter samples underlying the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, the RosKosmetika site does not appear, and the census has no data on its traffic.
Fate of the domain
The last web-archive snapshot of the home page is dated January 25, 2002[2]; no later copies of the site survive, and the text of that snapshot is no different from the December one[1][2] — over the space of a little more than a month, the page did not change. At the time this census was compiled, the domain roskosmetika.r52.ru was inactive, and the census data show no trace of the company having moved to another address. The surviving snapshots say nothing about the further fate of ZAO RosKosmetika itself.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)