spravkann.narod.ru was the site of the "Nizhny Novgorod Directory" (Нижегородская справочная), a seller of phone-and-address directories for Nizhny Novgorod and its region, business databases, and reference legal systems on compact disc[1]. The site ran on the free hosting service narod.ru; the copyright notice on the home page was dated 2001[1]. It was registered in the directory of the city portal nn.ru and listed there in the "Address and phone directories" category alongside other Nizhny Novgorod reference resources[2]. The first snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated 21 April 2003, the last — 1 April 2009[3].

What the "Nizhny Novgorod Directory" sold

As the home page put it, a visitor could "purchase phone-and-address directories of Nizhny Novgorod residents and residents of regional towns, as well as databases of regional businesses, construction databases, and the reference legal systems 'Garant' and 'Consultant Plus'"[1]. The seller promised prices "3-4 times below market" and a "100% quality guarantee" on the compact discs[1]. Orders were sent cash-on-delivery, with a stated delivery time of two to three days[1]. The catalog entry in the nn.ru directory listed the same range of goods, adding accounting software and "StroyExpert" to it[2].

The news section on the home page consisted of four lines, all dated to 2002: on 5 April a new "Consultant Plus" appeared, on 20 July a new version of the "Bukhgalteriya" (Accounting) disc, on 4 August "GARANT-MAXIMUM with regional legislation", and on 15 September "GARANT-StroyMaximum Nizhny Novgorod"[1]. The assortment, then, rested on two things: local phone databases and regional editions of legal systems.

What the site looked like

The home page was set up as simply as possible: a five-item menu — "Home", "News", "Prices", "Contacts", "Guestbook" — and a short welcome text[1]. The price list lived in the "Prices" section, buyer reviews in the guestbook, where readers were invited to "leave your opinion, and also read all the reviews about the site's work"[1]. Readers were separately advised, "to make it easier to find our shop," to add the address to their "Favorites"[1]. The seller's address and phone number were not placed on the home page — a separate "Contacts" page was set up for them[1]; in our materials only a snapshot of the home page survives.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site took part in the Counter.nn.ru ranking under number 2927[2]. In April 2002 the "Nizhny Novgorod Directory" held tenth place on the nn.ru directory's list of popular resources: 596 referrals from the catalog, with a counter rating of 19.07[4]. Its closest competitor in the category, the phone directory "Astrolyabiya — Delovoye Povolzhye", had a rating of 22.94 on 3 June 2002 against the Directory's 19.11[2].

After that the figure kept growing. By 20 June 2002 the site's rating in the same category had risen to 80[5], and by 16 September 2003 — to 105[6]. A substantial share of visitors came through the directory itself: the count of catalog referrals was broken out as a separate line in the list of popular resources[4]. For more on how this cross-section is put together, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the voting for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day, the site left no notable trace: it does not appear in the surviving results table for 2004[7].

The fate of the address

The site looked abandoned well before the late 2000s: in the snapshot from 30 January 2005, the last news item is dated 15 September 2002 — the section had gone unupdated for more than two years, even as the shop kept inviting buyers[1]. The web archive kept visiting the address for several more years: the last surviving snapshot is dated 1 April 2009[3]. When checked in August 2026, the site at this address was still responding.

In its makeup, the "Nizhny Novgorod Directory" belongs to the commercial layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the early 2000s: a storefront site on free hosting, five pages, cash-on-delivery instead of online payment, goods being a phone database and a legal system on compact disc[1]. Of the site's archival snapshots, one frame of the home page and a few lines in the city portal's catalog survive.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Address and phone directories" category, June 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Snapshots of spravkann.narod.ru in the web archive (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Popular resources of the nn.ru directory, 2002 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, category sorted list, June 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, September 2003 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)