ton-r.ru — the site of the Nizhny Novgorod firm TON'R (later the "TON-R" group of companies), which existed from 2000 to 2015. In its early version it was the page of a trading firm selling office and climate equipment in Nizhny Novgorod: the showroom was located at Alekseevskaya Street, in the administrative building of the Vodnik Stadium[1]. By the early 2010s the same address hosted the site of a construction company calling itself "GK TON-R" and working in Nizhny Novgorod[2].

Office and climate equipment: the 2000 site

The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated September 19, 2000[1]. The page was arranged with extreme simplicity: the firm's name, the address of the showroom — "30a Alekseyevskaya St., Administrative building of the Vodnik Stadium," two phone numbers in the 8312 area code, 35-66-40 and 35-26-41, and two topical sections[1].

The first section, "Office equipment," listed copiers, printers, digital duplicators, and service; the second, "Climate equipment" — air purifiers, air conditioners, heaters, heat curtains, heat guns, and the same kind of service. A separate line was the "About the company" page[1]. In the page's service keywords, which back then were written for search engines, besides the same product categories a list of brands appears: MB, Fuji, Bionaire, Minolta, Konica, Develop[1].

The same profile is recorded in the site's catalog description, preserved in the rating's materials: "Office equipment: copiers, printers, digital duplicators, service equipment. Climate equipment: air purifiers, air conditioners, heaters, heat curtains. Equipment prices"[5].

The "TON-R" construction group: the 2010s site

By 2013 the address ton-r.ru hosted an entirely different site — with the heading "Construction. Construction work in Nizhny Novgorod. Construction and installation work. Design"[2]. The main text was published on April 4, 2011, and updated on April 3, 2012; the entry's author was listed as "Administrator" — the administrator account in the site's content management system[2].

The text stated that "GK TON-R has been successfully operating in the construction market since 1997," and described the company's structure: its own design department, sections for interior and exterior engineering work, finishing crews, and service teams that maintain a completed facility during the warranty period and afterward under separate contracts[2]. The list of services in the page header read: "cottage construction, cottage design, construction and installation work — heating and ventilation — water supply and sewerage — external water supply and sewerage, design, air conditioners"[2] — the abbreviations denote the project's engineering sections, heating and ventilation, and water supply and sewerage. Air conditioners, which the firm started out with in 2000, remained on the list thirteen years later.

The site's menu consisted of the sections "Documents," "SRO admissions, Licenses," "Completed projects," "Recommendations," and "Contacts"; a separate block was set aside for the "Zapovedny Krai" cottage settlement[2]. In the footer stood the signature of the contractor who made the site: "Designed by OOO Webrazrabotka — Website creation — 8-905-66-11-860"[2].

How the trading firm of 2000 is connected to the construction group of the 2010s, the surviving snapshots do not explain: no intermediate states with substantive text were found in the archive between the early and late versions of the site. What remains common is the name, the domain, and the city.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site entered the census of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet from the Counter.nn.ru rating: it is recorded there in 2000 in the "Firms" section with a score of 43[5]. In the voting results of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day, ton-r.ru does not appear among those who received votes[4]. For a corporate site this is an ordinary picture: the firm's page lived not off audience and contests but off the fact that its address was printed in advertisements and given out over the phone. More on the sample and methodology — in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

An indirect measure of attention to the address is the frequency with which it was captured by the web archive: over fifteen years, ton-r.ru was accessed 39 times[5].

How it closed

A snapshot from October 13, 2015, shows a placeholder page instead of the site: the domain name, an offer to go to search results, and the line "Inquire about this domain" — meaning the address had been put up for sale[3]. The last web-archive capture of the address is dated January 11, 2016; everything captured afterward is parking pages[5].

A check made while compiling the census found no active site at ton-r.ru: the domain is unregistered[5]. Of fifteen years of operation, a few dozen archival snapshots remain — and a phone number in the 8312 area code, at which the price of a copier and a heat curtain was once asked.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2015 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  5. — Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet based on the counter.nn.ru rating