kinolog.r52.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod animal lovers' club "Vernyy Drug" (Faithful Friend), operating in the early 2000s on the third level of the Nizhny Novgorod zone r52.ru. The home page presented the "Nizhny Novgorod Association of Animal Lovers 'Vernyy Drug'," organized, as the home page stated, in 1989, and invited visitors to the club at 43 Belinskogo Street[1]. The only surviving snapshot of the site is dated December 2, 2001[1].
The "Vernyy Drug" club
Everything known about the club from the surviving snapshot is set out on a single page — an introductory address to the visitor. The association was organized in 1989, and from 1993, as the home page stated, it had been a member of the Russian Cynological Federation[1]. The club brought together cat and dog lovers, and "in the near future," the page noted, a plant lovers' club was also to be added[1].
Among the breeds the club worked with, the page named the Rottweiler, the Doberman, schnauzers, the poodle, and the American cocker spaniel. It separately noted, as the home page put it, "known results" in breeding mastiffs — the Neapolitan Mastiff, the Dogue de Bordeaux, and the Shar Pei[1]. The club regularly held dog shows of all breeds, and from 1998 its traditional event became the CAC-ranked show "Volga Cup"[1]. The address on the home page was signed by the club's head, Elvira Viktorovna Sandakova[1].
What the home page looked like
The site consisted of an introductory text, labeled as an "Introduction" section, and opened with an epigraph — a quote from Konrad Lorenz about how modern man finds it pleasant to feel "four legs pattering behind"[1]. Next came an address, "Dear friends!," and a account of the club; the surviving snapshot contains no galleries, forums, or price lists.
The practical part of the page served as the contacts section and was written the way one explains directions in conversation: "Our address: 43 Belinskogo St., 'Ashkhabadskaya' transit stop, in the building where the 'Slavyansky' shop is, entrance from the courtyard, right entryway," phone 37-28-61, reception hours — Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 16:00 to 19:00[1]. At the bottom of the page was the line "Hosted by r52.ru"[1] — the site lived on the platform of a local provider, and the third-level name kinolog referred to cynology, the club's main activity.
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet
The site came into our census through the nn.ru directory, where it was listed with the description "Nizhny Novgorod Association of Animal Lovers" (see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating). It does not appear in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru counter, and we have no data on its traffic. In the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, the domain kinolog.r52.ru is not mentioned[2].
The site belongs to the everyday layer of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet at the turn of the century: a business-card page for a real, existing city association, made once, without updates and without any expectation of traffic. The internet here functioned as an extension of a newspaper listing — to give an address, a phone number, and reception hours.
How it closed
The web archive preserved exactly one snapshot of the site — from December 2, 2001[1]; there are no later copies of the home page in the archive. Exactly when the site stopped being updated and when it disappeared from hosting cannot be established from the surviving data. As of our check, the domain kinolog.r52.ru does not exist. No information about the further fate of the club itself has survived in the materials available to us.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)