lsplus.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod socio-political weekly Leninskaya Smena Plus, a direct successor to the Komsomol paper Leninskaya Smena. In 2002, the site published issues of the newspaper, which each week bestowed on participants in regional politics titles such as "genies" and "toads," received two official warnings from the Ministry of the Press, and was shut down by court order on the Ministry's suit — only to resume publication that same summer under a new name with the same abbreviation: Legendarnaya Smena Plus [1][2][3][4].

From "Molodaya Rat'" to "LS+"

The editorial office traced its history to 1 June 1919 — the day the "Page of Proletarian Youth" first appeared. Over the years the paper changed its name and owners many times: it served as the organ of the gubernatorial, krai, and regional Komsomol committees, became a "newspaper for Nizhny Novgorod youth" in the 1990s, and from issue no. 2 of 20–26 December 1996 began appearing as Leninskaya Smena Plus with the subtitle "socio-political weekly" [5].

The founders of the new weekly in 1996–1997 were listed as the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the all-Russian movement "Reforms — A New Course" and the regional committee of the Russian Union of Youth; from 1998, the founder was the non-profit partnership "Editorial and Publishing Centre Leninskaya Smena Plus" [5]. The partnership was registered on 30 October 1997 and was known by the abbreviation "RITs LS" [6]. According to the Nizhny Novgorod Telegraph Agency, the rights to the trademark Leninskaya Smena passed to the editorial collective, which established this partnership [7].

The Leninskaya Smena editorial office was located at 7 Sverdlov Street — now Bolshaya Pokrovskaya. In August 1991 it was the only Nizhny Novgorod newspaper to appear with a blank, unprinted front page: the paper's response to the official materials of the State Emergency Committee (GKChP). In 1995, by order of Mayor Ivan Sklyarov, the premises were transferred to other tenants and the editorial office relocated first to Gagarin Avenue, 26, then to Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, 15. In June 2000, Leninskaya Smena Plus returned to building no. 7 [7].

Newspaper names
YearsNameNotes
1919"Stranichka proletarskoy molodyozhi" ("Page of Proletarian Youth")first issue on 1 June; the editorial staff counted its history from this date [5]
1921–1928"Molodaya rat'" ("Young Host")organ of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Komsomol Committee [5]
1929–1995"Leninskaya smena" ("Lenin's Shift")newspaper of the regional, then Gorky Oblast Komsomol Committee; published under this name through issue no. 14 of 16 February 1995 [5]
1996–2002"Leninskaya smena plyus" ("Lenin's Shift Plus")socio-political weekly, subscription index 41052 [1][5]
2002–2014"Legendarnaya smena plyus" ("Legendary Shift Plus") ("LS Plus")registration certificate issued 14 June 2002, revoked by court order on 25 June 2014 [4]

The 2000 Split

On 19 October 2000, representatives of the founders sealed the editorial offices. At a press conference they announced that editor-in-chief Vladimir Kochetkov had registered a separate newspaper called "Leninskaya Smena" — without the "plus" — and had transferred the subscription index "LS+" to it. On the day an issue appeared under the name "Leninskaya Smena," Kochetkov was removed from his post; Mikhail Ashtayev, previously deputy editor-in-chief of "Arguments and Facts — Nizhny Novgorod," became the new editor-in-chief. The founders acknowledged that under the previous editor the print run had grown to 20,000 copies [8].

The partnership attempted to bar the new editorial team from using the words "Leninskaya Smena" in the title, but arbitration courts at three levels rejected the claim. The cassation court, on 14 June 2001, noted that both newspapers had been registered in the prescribed manner and that neither party held a certificate of title as a trademark [6]. Thus two "Smenas" came to exist in the city; the history of the newspaper without the "plus" is covered in the article Leninskaya Smena.

What Was on the Website

By April 2002, full issues were being posted on lsplus.ru. The browser window title read "···LENINSKAYA SMENA PLUS···"; the menu led to the archive, a letter to the editor, advertising, subscriptions, and analysis. The homepage featured a "rumor window" with short news items, an archive of recent issues, "the main story in the issue," and material from the latest edition organized by section [1].

The sections of the May issue illustrated the full range of the newspaper: "LS+ rating," "power and business," "friends of the people," "the mafia is immortal," "narod.ru," "dramatis personae," "crime," and "staropад" — a chronicle of celebrity gossip and oddities such as "Mutant Bees Kill Man in Oryol" [1][2]. Other issues featured "168 hours," "the TV eye," "the provinces," "sheer circus," and the section "ls plus + the yellow paper" [2]. The issue of 25 April 2002 also contained a section headed "we're ordered — we comply," under which stood a single word: "Retraction" [9].

A distinctive genre of the newspaper was the weekly "LS+" rating: participants in the week's notable events were given scores and awarded titles. Editions were called "Suns and Cockroaches," "Genies and Toads," "Archangels and Burdocks," "Knights and Worms" [1][10][11][12].

The bottom of the page is a ready-made museum exhibit: the editorial address "603057, Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarin Avenue, 27, offices 212, 213," six-digit phone numbers 75-94-55 and 65-89-21, an email address on Cityline, and the editor-in-chief was to be reached via a paging service: "30-30-30, sub. 'Barinov'." Alongside these stood SpyLOG and Counter.nn.ru hit counters, Gismeteo weather widgets, and currency-rate tickers from nnov.ru [1]. The print version of any article opened with the line "When using this material, a reference to the newspaper is mandatory!" [13].

In the nn.ru portal's directory, the weekly was listed under "Mass Media: Newspapers and Magazines" with a rating of 72.05 and a description promising "the sharpest and most topical, bold and gripping articles, and explosive investigative journalism" [14].

Advertising price list, June 2002
ModuleArea, sq. cmPrice, RUB
1 full page9409,000; image advertising — 20,000 [11]
1/24604,500; image — 10,000 [11]
1/42252,300; image — 5,000 [11]
1/81101,140 [11]
1/1650580 [11]
1/3225300 [11]
Surcharges—front page +50%, back page +25%, TV schedule page +10%; "flexible discount system in effect!" [11]

We continue publishing our ranking of the most notable political and public events that took place in the Nizhny Novgorod Region over the past week, assigning scores and corresponding titles to their participants. It is worth noting that this time the range of titles is quite broad. It includes mammals, amphibians, and even entirely mythical creatures

— the "LS+" ranking "Genies and Toads," main page of lsplus.ru, May 2002 [1]

Warnings, the court, and "Legendarnaya Smena"

In 2001, the Ministry of the Press issued the editorial board an official warning over issues 18, 20, and 21, which were devoted to the gubernatorial election: the electoral commission of Nizhny Novgorod Region deemed those publications unlawful pre-election campaigning. In the text of the warning, the Ministry noted that repeated violations within twelve months would provide grounds for shutting down the publication through the courts [15].

In March 2002, the Volga regional office of the Ministry filed a lawsuit citing two warnings within a year, and on June 7, 2002, the Nizhegorodsky District Court ruled that the newspaper "Leninskaya Smena Plus" must cease operations [3]. As early as June 14, a new publication was registered — "Legendarnaya Smena Plus" ("LS Plus"), with V. V. Barinov as its founder [4]. On the website, the change is visible in the numbering: issue No. 23 (286) of June 20, 2002, was followed by issue No. 1 (1) of July 18, while the page title still referred to the newspaper as "Leninskaya Smena Plus" [2].

In August 2002, at the height of the Nizhny Novgorod mayoral election campaign, Viktor Barinov, editor-in-chief of *Legendarnaya Smena Plus*, was registered as a candidate — one of sixteen contenders [16]. The "Archangels and Suckers" ratings column acknowledged that the week's events "continued to revolve mainly around the mayoral election," the "friends of the people" section covered candidate Vadim Bulavinov, and the paper ran an interview with Andrey Klimentyev, who had been removed from the ballot [1][10].

In a study of the Region's media market published in the *NNSU Bulletin* in 2003, *Legendarnaya Smena Plus* (formerly *Leninskaya Smena Plus*) was listed as part of the media holding of State Duma deputy D. V. Savelyev and named among the publications that had supported mayor Yury Lebedev in the 1998 and 2002 elections. The same study mentioned the paper among publications that had suspended publication but might return for the next campaign [17]. As of December 2002, issue No. 12, dated 3 October, remained the most recent issue on the website [12].

The non-commercial partnership "RITs 'Leninskaya Smena Plus'" was dissolved by court order on 6 February 2013 [18], and the registration certificate of *Legendarnaya Smena Plus* was annulled by court order on 25 June 2014 [4].

  • The newspaper published supplements and special issues, among them *"Leninskaya Smena"–Kstovo Plus* and *Antikir* — "for the Volga Federal District" [5]; the presidential envoy to the district at that time was Sergey Kirienko, about whom the paper wrote in 2002 [13].

What became of the address

In February 2003, the address lsplus.ru redirected visitors to a hosting page of the provider INFORIS bearing the single message "Account disabled" [19][20].

By June 2004, the same abbreviation was in use by a Moscow company called "LS Plus," which built structured cabling networks: "from connecting two office computers for shared access to a printer and modem, to structured cabling systems for several hundred PCs." Callers were directed to the Moscow numbers (095) 517-9529 and 517-9528; the company promised to operate "without days off or breaks," and its sole piece of news — about a tender for a 138-workstation network in Moscow School No. 1254 — remained posted on the site until at least March 2009 [21][22].

From June 2013, the address hosted a doorway site called "Home Appliance Catalog": pages about refrigerators, chest freezers, and washing machines, whose descriptions featured "programmes," a "cotton rapid" cycle, and "piquant washing." The address remained in this form until at least December 2019 [23][24].

The lsplus.ru address over the years
YearsWhat was at the address
2002website of the weekly newspaper "Leninskaya Smena Plus": issues, "LS+" ratings, price list [1][2][10]
2003redirect to the "INFORIS" hosting page "Account disabled" [19][20]
2004–2009website of the Moscow company "LS Plus", local network installation [21][22]
2013–2019doorway site "Home Appliance Catalog" [23][24]

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Home page of lsplus.ru, May 24, 2002: issue no. 19 (282), "LS+" ratings, editorial contacts (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Home page of lsplus.ru, August 2, 2002: archive of issues no. 23 (286), no. 1 (1), no. 2 (2) (archive)
  3. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive) — Newspaper "Leninskaya Smena Plus" to cease publication, June 7, 2002 (archive)
  4. rkn.gov.ru — Roskomnadzor — Register of registered mass media outlets: "Legendarnaya Smena Plus" ("LS Plus"), PI no. 77-12950
  5. search.rsl.ru — Russian State Library — Leninskaya Smena Plus: socio-political weekly. Nizhny Novgorod, 1921–2002. Electronic newspaper catalog (archive)
  6. garant.ru — GARANT.RU — Ruling of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka Circuit, June 14, 2001, no. А43-7420/00-23-239
  7. innov.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Business Online — "Leninskaya Smena Plus" returns to its "historical home", June 15, 2000 (per Nizhny Novgorod Telegraph Agency report)
  8. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — (NTA archive) — Press conference of the founders of the newspaper "Leninskaya Smena Plus", October 26, 2000 (archive)
  9. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Leninskaya Smena Plus": reader letter form and table of contents of issue no. 17 (280), April 25, 2002 (archive)
  10. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Home page of lsplus.ru, September 29, 2002: "Archangels and Bumblers" ratings, interview with Andrey Klimentyev (archive)
  11. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Leninskaya Smena Plus": advertising in the newspaper, price list, June 7, 2002 (archive)
  12. web.archive.org — Web Archive — lsplus.ru: article from issue no. 12 (12), October 3, 2002, "Knights and Worms" ratings, snapshot dated December 5, 2002 (archive)
  13. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "Leninskaya Smena Plus": "The Plenipotentiary's Chemical Hook", print version, issue no. 14 (277), April 4, 2002 (archive)
  14. web.archive.org — Web Archive — nn.ru portal category index: "Mass Media: Newspapers and Magazines", April 8, 2002 (archive)
  15. evartist.narod.ru — Rikhter A. G. Legal Foundations of Journalism — Textbook, appendix 2: warning issued to the editor of the newspaper "Leninskaya Smena Plus" (archive)
  16. regnum.ru — City Electoral Commission issues candidate certificates for the post of Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod to four more contenders, August 9, 2002
  17. unn.ru — Bulletin of Nizhny Novgorod University — Gavryuchenkova M. G. Characteristics of the media concentration process in a Russian region (the case of Nizhny Novgorod Region), 2003 (archive)
  18. checko.ru — Non-profit partnership "Editorial and Publishing Center 'Leninskaya Smena Plus'" (TIN 5262059794): Unified State Register of Legal Entities data
  19. web.archive.org — Web Archive — lsplus.ru, February 14, 2003: redirect to host.inforis.ru/disabled.html (archive)
  20. web.archive.org — Web Archive — host.inforis.ru/disabled.html, December 1, 2002: "Account disabled" (archive)
  21. web.archive.org — Web Archive — "LS Plus — Contacts", June 11, 2004 (archive)
  22. web.archive.org — Web Archive — Home page of lsplus.ru, March 16, 2009: website of the company "LS Plus" (archive)
  23. web.archive.org — Web Archive — lsplus.ru, June 13, 2013: "Home Appliances Catalog" (archive)
  24. web.archive.org — Web Archive — lsplus.ru, December 14, 2019: "Home Appliances Catalog" (archive)