solidart.nnov.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod firm "Solidart," which was engaged in printing and branded promotional products. The earliest saved snapshot of the home page was made on December 12, 1998; it lists the firm's address: 603022, Nizhny Novgorod, Oksky Sjezd, 2-a, phone and fax (8312) 34-24-54 and 34-24-50, email solid@kis.ru[1]. In the early 2000s the site presented it as "Печатный Салон 'Солидарт'" ("Solidart" Print Salon)[2] and kept the same look at least until February 2005[3]. The last capture of the home page in the web archive's index is dated October 18, 2009[4].

The 1998 page

The earliest snapshot shows a one-page business-card site. The heading read "Преставительская продукция" ("Representative Products," misspelled as in the original), and below it an invitation "В ГОСТИ? ПОЖАЛУЙСТА!!!" ("Visiting? Please do!!!"), as the home page put it. The menu had six items: "About the Firm," "Lines of Business," "Product Range," "Our Prices," "Communicator," and "Links"[1].

A separate line offered "Place an order over the Internet at a discount!," which led to a form titled "ORDER FORM for the production of business cards, letterheads, and envelopes" — an unusual feature for a Nizhny Novgorod business site of 1998, where an order could be placed directly online. The footer read "Сopyright 1998 Serov. All rights reserved" and was signed "Design by Dmitry Serov." It also had an encoding switcher — ENGLISH, KOI, WIN, DOS, MAC, ISO — a common feature of Russian sites of that era, and navigation for the "Nizhny Novgorod Ring of Links" with "previous," "next," and "random" links[1].

The Print Salon: 2002–2005

By May 2002 the site had been rebuilt: it now had a headline column with a self-introduction and a feed of short news items. "We invite you to get acquainted with the 'Solidart' Print Salon. Our name consists of two parts: 'Solid...' and 'Art,' and comes from the basic definition of our work — the art of making you solid [respectable]," the home page stated. It also said the firm was created to keep up the client's image "at the proper level"[2].

The news items on the 2002 snapshot give a sense of the product range and of what kept the site's visitors engaged: on April 23, 2002 — "Hurry to order T-shirts, baseball caps, flags, pennants...," on May 23, 2002 — "Exchange rates. Daily updates!!!"[2]. The copyright notice in the footer had been updated to "© Solidart 2001," while the phone and fax (8312) 34-24-50 and 34-24-54 and the email address solid@kis.ru remained unchanged[2].

A snapshot from February 4, 2005 shows the same page with the same text about "Solid" and "Art" and the same contact details; only the news items had changed — on September 14, 2004 "Discounts!!! With the start of the calendar season..." and on January 27, 2005 "Gifts for your loved ones. Now is exactly the time to think about gifts for the upcoming holidays..."[3]. Thus the firm's phone numbers and mailbox did not change for at least seven years, from 1998 to 2005[1][3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site entered our sample from the nn.ru directory's category listing, where it was described in a single line: "Printing, T-shirts with your advertising, business cards." This places "Solidart" among the many Nizhny Novgorod firms for which a web page was an extension of print advertising rather than a project in its own right.

As far as the surviving data shows, the site had no renown beyond its own industry: it does not appear in the samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating that we have on hand, meaning we have no visitor-count figures for it (more on the sample itself in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating). "Solidart" does not appear in the results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004[5]. Yet the site did declare its own membership in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: in 1998 it belonged to the "Nizhny Novgorod Ring of Links," a chain of local sites that passed visitors on to one another[1].

How it closed

The web archive's index contains 39 captures of the solidart.nnov.ru home page, the earliest from December 12, 1998, the latest from October 18, 2009[4]. The site never announced a closing date: between the 2005 snapshot and the last capture, no farewell messages appear in the surviving text. According to our domain check, solidart.nnov.ru is not working today, and no move to another address has been recorded.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 1998 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)