sterling.nnov.ru was the site of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Sterling Group S.A., which existed from at least November 1999. The home page presented the branch with the address "603005 Nizhny Novgorod, Teatralnaya Square, 3," phone (8312) 36-21-30, fax 36-95-74, and the mailbox mail@sterling.nnov.ru[1]. From the page there was a link to the "main Sterling Group server, Moscow," meaning the Nizhny Novgorod site was a regional representation of a larger structure[2]. In the nn.ru catalog card, from which the domain entered our register of dead Nizhny Novgorod sites, the activity is described in one line: "Programming training in Oracle."

What the site offered

The home page was arranged as a short menu of the branch's areas of work. In the 1999 snapshot there are four: "Comprehensive network solutions," "Cisco Systems products," "R/3 corporate information system," and "Authorized Oracle training center"[1]. The set combined systems integration, supply of network equipment, implementation of a corporate information system, and training — the last of these is what the catalog compilers remembered the site for.

By 2002 the menu had grown. In addition to the previous four items, the page featured "Monitoring and control system for network power supply processes," a "Services and solutions offered" section, a "List of available information materials," "Press publications about our company," "Important news from Sterling Group," a "How to find us" map, and a guest book — as the home page put it, the visitor was invited to "Leave a message in the 'Book of Records'"[2]. A separate line held a link to "VFD application experience (MS Word article, 150KB)": a technical article was posted not as a web page but as a word-processor file — a common practice for corporate sites of that era[2].

Judging by the document's service properties embedded in its code and preserved in the archived text, the home page itself was prepared in a word processor: it retained the name Yuri V. Zimin and a last-saved date of October 25, 1999[1]. The snapshot from November 22, 1999, still carried the announcement "We invite you to a seminar on October 14!" with links to an invitation and a questionnaire[1].

Phone number change and standstill

Between the 1999 and 2002 snapshots, the branch's contact numbers changed: instead of (8312) 36-21-30 and fax 36-95-74, the page shows (8312) 19-21-30 and fax 19-95-74, while the address on Teatralnaya Square and the email remained the same[1][2].

After 2002 the page stopped changing: the snapshot from January 2, 2004, matches the text of the snapshot from July 19, 2002 — the same address, the same phone numbers, the same set of sections[3]. In other words, the site's last years were spent frozen in place.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site belongs to the layer of corporate representations that largely made up the Nizhny Novgorod Internet at the turn of the century: not media, not a community, but a company business-card page with an address, a phone number, and a list of services. It entered our sample from the nn.ru catalog's directory, not from the Counter.nn.ru rating — no traffic data for it is recorded in the counter samples preserved by us, so the size of its audience cannot be judged. The general method and boundaries of this sample are described in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, the domain sterling.nnov.ru does not appear[5]. This fits the nature of the resource: the site of a systems integrator's branch addressed clients, not a public competing for popular votes.

How it closed

The domain was not, as far as our data shows, transferred to anyone or made to change owners. The web archive preserved 37 captures at the address; the first is dated November 22, 1999, and the last, March 30, 2008[4]. No trace of the site exists beyond that: the page of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Sterling Group stopped being updated already in the early 2000s and quietly disappeared along with its address in the nnov.ru zone, leaving behind only archived copies of the home page.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 1999 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Web archive: snapshots of sterling.nnov.ru, 1999 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Voting results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, 2004 (archive)