150 kilometers from Kazan, in the Spassky district of Tatarstan is a historical and archaeological Museum - reserve, where lie the ruins of the Great city of Bilyar, the capital of Volga Bulgaria 10-13 centuries.

He founded the ancient settlement of the Volga Bulgars in 992, and by the eleventh century, the area of the settlement with a settlement and fortifications were approximately 620 hectares. The thirteenth century Bilyar was the political, economic and cultural center of the Volga Bulgaria, a convergence trade route from Byzantium, Central Asia, Russia, the Baltic States and the Caucasus. First mention of the "Great city" date back to the year 1164 in Russian Laurentian Chronicles. It says about the city with a highly developed market infrastructure: in the Bulgarian capital flourished metallurgy, blacksmithing, jewelry, glass, leather and other crafts. In 1236, after a 45-day siege of the ancient Mongol troops Bilyar was completely destroyed and burned.

In our days one of the most interesting open by archaeologists of ancient buildings can be distinguished: the complex of the mosque (2500 sq. m.), a caravanserai (the East gate), the mausoleum of the Bulgar nobility and a two-storey building of the feudal Lord. Among the ruins are well ancient squares, streets, ponds.

Modern village Bilyarsk located on the territory of the once giant of the city, was founded in 1654 as a fortified settlement on the border of the TRANS-Kama defense line. In the nineteenth century Bilyarsk receives the status of a merchant trading suburbs, but, in the twentieth century (after the great Patriotic war) the village is empty again. In our day to the village trail is Alekseevsky - Bilyarsk. In the village is an architectural-cult band "Holy spring", vintage Archangel Church and chapel on the grave of a famous scientist-chemist A. M. Butlerov.