start.r2.ru was an unofficial website of the Nizhny Novgorod bandy club "Start" (Russian ball hockey / bandy), which operated in the r2.ru domain zone and was listed in the nn.ru directory, in the /rub/ section[1]. Snapshots of the home page preserved in the web archive span the period from December 11, 2001 to August 2, 2002[1][4].
What the site looked like and what it offered
The home page opened with the heading "Unofficial website of the Nizhny Novgorod bandy club 'START' — News" and a menu of sections: "News," "Team," "History," "Championship," "Statistics," with "Archive" and "ON-LINE" added later; also present were "Guestbook," "Forum," and "Links"[1][2]. The page carried a visit counter under the heading "How many of us are there?"[1], and by June 2002 the editors reported that "just a month ago" the site had marked its first anniversary and had installed a new statistics counter, inviting visitors to view the "May traffic report"[3]. A "Fan Club News Mailing List of the bandy club 'Start'" was organized for fans[2][3][4], and in June 2002 the site added a built-in text translator, "English-Russian translation / Russian-English translation," in connection with the start of the FIFA World Cup[3]. The page footer credited authorship: "Copyright © startnet 2002"[3][4].
The season chronicle on the site
On December 11, 2001, the home page announced a home game of "Start" against "Vodnik" and invited fans to Start Stadium at 6:00 PM (Moscow time)[1]; the same snapshot carried a report on Start's 9:1 victory over "Sever," mentioning goals by Oleg Chubinsky and Sergei Taranov[1]. By April 2002 the site was reporting the season's results: "Start" had finished second in the Russian bandy championship, after which the editors announced a fan vote for the best players of the 2001/2002 season and posted photographs from the final tournament in Arkhangelsk, provided by the official website of the Russian government cup tournament[2]. By August 2002 the page said the team had begun pre-season training on August 22 and was preparing, among other things, to take part in the World Cup in Sweden; former Start player Alexei Dyakov had joined the team for training[4].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
The site was listed in the Counter.nn.ru directory with a rating of 42.0[1]; no data on votes for it is recorded in the surviving snapshots. On December 11, 2001, the home page reported that on December 13 the club "Picasso" would host the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day, featuring a contest of Nizhny Novgorod websites, and that the editors had entered their site in the "Personal (Author's Site)" category[1]; the results of this contest and the site's placement in it are not preserved in the material. A detailed methodology for counting traffic to Nizhny Novgorod websites of that era is described in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating and in the article on the Nizhny Novgorod Internet.
How it closed
The last home-page snapshot preserved in the web archive is dated August 2, 2002[4]. According to available data, the domain start.r2.ru no longer exists; the material contains no information about the site moving to another address.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, April 2002 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, June 2002 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, August 2002 (archive)