inomarka.nn.ru was a Nizhny Novgorod car website of the early 2000s, an ordering service for used foreign cars from abroad. Its address sat in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone nn.ru, and the site itself was listed in the directory of the "Nizhny Novgorod OnLine" portal under "Firms (Enterprises): Auto: Car Trading," with visits counted by the regional counter Counter.nn.ru under number 3000[4]. According to surviving web archive snapshots, the site was live from June 2002 to March 2003[1][3]. Its own news item about the opening was dated May 13, with no year given.

What it was

The directory card described the project as follows: "A system for ordering used cars. Ordering cars of major manufacturers from abroad, delivery to Russia, short deadlines, low prices. A catalog and ordering system for auto parts, private classifieds for selling, buying, and exchanging cars" (spelling of the original)[7]. That is, three services were declared at once: brokering car imports, a parts shop, and a classifieds board.

None of them survived in the web archive: the snapshots were taken only from the home page, and the home page was built as a news showcase. The top block, "INOMARKA.nn.ru News," consisted of a single entry that never changed throughout the entire observation period: "05.13 Opening of the ИНОМАРКА.nn.ru site. We're open! Welcome to our site," as the home page reported[1][2][3].

Below it was the "Automotive News" block — a feed of other outlets' industry reports, fifteen headlines per page, with toggles "[ 0-15 ][ 15-30 ][ 30-45 ][ Next»» ]" and a separate "[ Search»» ]" link[1]. The feed was global and all-Russian, with almost nothing local in it: on June 4, 2002, the home page carried notes about Mitsubishi's plans to build cars in China, about a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Cuba, and about rising gasoline prices in the US, and only one line concerned the region — "AVTOVAZ received a gold medal at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition"[1]. By March 20, 2003, the feed was still being updated in the same mode: "Cars of the Year named in Russia," "Newspaper: there will be no cheap foreign cars," "Russian buses cut production by 1.6%"[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The nn.ru directory listed the site in at least two automotive categories, both of which showed its counter ranking. In "Car Trading," in the snapshot from June 23, 2002, INOMARKA ranked fourth with a rating of 334 — after the firm "VOLGA TRADE" (1226), "AutoSpetsSbyt" (1203), and the firm "TSS" (921)[4]. In the "Auto Parts, Components and Accessories Trading" category, on August 16, 2002 — fourth place again, rating 373[5]. In July 2002, the site made it into the directory's "New Resources" listing with a rating of 338[6]. The directory took this number directly from Counter.nn.ru: next to each line was a link to the counter card, and for INOMARKA it was card number 3000[4]. On how to read these figures, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

The most telling evidence of traffic is the directory's "Most Popular" section, which listed sites "that directory visitors clicked through to most often over the last 30 days." In the snapshot from November 17, 2002, INOMARKA held the 97th spot with 170 click-throughs from the directory over the month, at a counter rating of 402[7]. The gap to its neighbors was measured in single digits: 95th place went to the Nizhny Novgorod regional government's site (172 click-throughs), 96th to "PSSR" (171)[7]. That was what the middle of the popularity list of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet looked like in 2002.

How it closed

The last home-page snapshot in the web archive is dated March 20, 2003[3]; there is no closure announcement or farewell entry in the snapshots — the news feed simply stops. According to our check, the domain inomarka.nn.ru no longer exists today, and no successor has been found.

The site does not appear in the final voting table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day in 2004[8] — by the time of the contest it had already been missing from the archive for over a year. In our surviving samples of the counter.nn.ru tables its line does not appear either: all known rating figures — 334, 338, 373, and 402 — are taken from nn.ru directory cards from 2002[4][6][7]. All that remains of the foreign-car ordering service is a directory card and three snapshots of a news feed.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, June 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, November 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, March 2003 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Firms: Auto: Car Trading," 2002 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Firms: Auto: Auto Parts, Components and Accessories Trading," 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "New Resources," 2002 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Most Popular" section, November 2002 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Voting results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, 2004 (archive)