vist.nnov.ru is the website of the Nizhny Novgorod computer company VIST-NN, which later signed itself simply "Company VIST." The domain was active from 1999 to 2020. The company's local roots are visible right in the title of its 2007 home page: "Company VIST:: Nizhny Novgorod"[1]. In the second half of its life, the same address opened the website of the service center of Yunikom Servis LLC, with an office at 603105, Nizhny Novgorod, Vaneev Street, 127, and the telephone number +7 [831] 278-51-00[2]. The nn.ru directory describes the firm as "one of the largest computer firms in the region." The last snapshot in the web archive is dated February 5, 2020[3].

The first version: a choice of encoding instead of content

The earliest snapshot of the site was taken on November 23, 1999. Only one line of the page has survived: "VIST-NN Copyright 1999 Vist-NN. For any comments, please contact to Webmaster. WIN | DOS | KOI | MAC"[4]. The four abbreviations at the end are not sections but switches between Cyrillic encodings, a mandatory element of Russian websites in the 1990s; there was no other content on the title page at the time.

An online store, circa 2007

By the mid-2000s the site had turned into a full-fledged storefront for a trading firm. The top menu bar offered the sections "Promotions," "Jobs," "Partners," "Seminars," "Search," and FAQ, while the bottom navigation read "Home / About / News / Online Store / Credit / Dealers / Service Center / Special Projects"[1]. The product catalog was divided into sections: servers, laptops and accessories for them, stationery, speakers, software, scanners, modems, monitors, printers, consumables, active and passive network equipment, surge protectors, and uninterruptible power supplies[1]. The storefront featured HP LaserJet 1018 and 1020 laser printers and Genius SP-iE350 speakers rated at 10 W (RMS)[1].

The firm's own news items for July 2007: "Change of our telephone numbers" and "Half a monitor as a gift!" from July 23, "Economical offer on cartridges" from July 10, and "Budget offer on a Unicom computer" from July 6[1]. Unicom was the name of the firm's own-assembly computers. According to the home page, visitors had access to an "Online consultant" with the city number 9-053-523, and the footer carried the lines "Company VIST Copyright 2005-2007" and "Developed by Web Mekhanika"[1]. A separate column carried a feed of other companies' technology news — among the headlines on July 23, 2007, was "Klondike Computers leaves the market"[1].

Change of content: a service center

Snapshots from 2011, 2012, and 2013 show that the same domain no longer hosted a store but the website of the service center of OOO Unicom Service: "The Unicom Service team is glad to welcome you!"[2]. The menu consisted of the sections "Home," "About the Company," "News," "Reviews," "Vacancies," and "Expert Assessment," while the sidebar listed "For Corporate Clients," "Partner Program," "Bonus Program," "Warranty Repair," "Paid Repair," "Price List," "Repair Request," "Photo Gallery," "Q&A," and a site map[5]. An electronic order system was in operation: the status of a repair could be checked by work order number, and a separate section showed the average repair times for equipment[6]. The contact details in the header remained unchanged: a phone and fax number, +7 [831] 278-51-00, an email address on the unicom.nnov.ru domain, and an address at 127 Vaneev Street[6]. The design is credited to the studio PG DESIGN[5].

The last surviving version explains the connection between the two incarnations of the domain. As the home page stated, "our company's history begins in 1997," when the service division of the company Vist received an offer from Samsung to set up an authorized service center for servicing monitors, printers, and other equipment — at that time the only such center in the region[3]. Over twenty years, its partners included Philips, Viewsonic, CTX, Belinea, Kraftway, Rover, Mustek, APC, Prestigio, Epson, OKI, and Dell[3]. The same page states that by the beginning of 2017 the number of repaired devices had exceeded 120,000, and the address to visitors was signed by the general director, S. V. Anufriev[3]. By this time the menu had acquired "Huawei Parts Catalog," "Expert Assessment," "Drop-off Points," and "Service Programs," while the page text still contained a work schedule for June 2018 that had never been removed[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and closure

The site was among the participants of Counter.nn.ru, the Nizhny Novgorod counter and directory around which the local Nizhny Novgorod Internet was organized. According to the ranking summary, the score for vist.nnov.ru was 346. In the 2004 vote for Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, the site received 6 votes[7]; for a corporate site whose audience consisted of customers and dealers rather than regulars of the city's rankings, this is an expectedly modest result.

The web archive preserved 80 captures of the address over twenty-one years. The last snapshot is dated February 5, 2020, and shows a working service center website[3]; there is no information on the further fate of the domain in the archival materials. For more on the counter.nn.ru ranking, see the archival study of the ranking.

Home Page by Year

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home Page, 2007 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home Page, 2011 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home Page, 2020 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home Page, 1999 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home Page, 2012 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Home Page, 2013 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day Vote, 2004 (archive)