Bilyar

Bilyar was a great city of Volga Bulgaria on the Little Cheremshan River. Known in Russian chronicles as the Great City, it was a major center of trade and, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, served among the capitals of the Bulgar state. Its fortified site and extensive remains testify to the scale of a city that drew people and goods through the middle Volga region. Batu Khan's army sacked it in 1236, destroying its monumental buildings.

Although the city was rebuilt after the Mongol conquest, it never recovered its former size or power. The old earthworks remained a reminder of the earlier Bulgar center. In 1654, as the Russian state fortified its southeastern frontier, a new Russian fort called Bilyar was established near the ancient site. The later settlement thus stood in a landscape marked both by the remains of Volga Bulgaria and by a new line of frontier defenses.