At 150 km from Kazan, Tatarstan region at Alexeyev is historical and archaeological museum-reserve, where lie the ruins of the Great Bilyar city - the capital of Volga Bulgaria 10-13 centuries.

Founded the ancient settlement of the Volga Bulgars in 992, and by the eleventh century the area of ​​the settlement with Posada and fortified was about 620 hectares. By the thirteenth century Bilyar was the political, economic and cultural center of the Volga Bulgaria, where converged trade routes from the Byzantine Empire, Central Asia, Russia, the Baltic states and the Caucasus. The first mention of the "great city" date back to the year 1164 in the Russian Laurentian Chronicle. It says about the city with a highly developed market infrastructure: in the Bulgarian capital, flourished metallurgy, blacksmithing, jewelry, glass blowing, leather and other crafts. In 1236, after a 45-day siege of the ancient Mongol army Bilyar it was completely destroyed and burned.

Today, the most interesting discoveries of archaeologists of ancient buildings are: the cathedral mosque complex (2,500 square meters), a caravanserai (the east gate), the mausoleum of the Bulgarian nobility and the two-storey building of the feudal lord. Among the ruins are well looked through ancient squares, streets, water bodies.

Modern Bilyarsk village, located on the territory of the once giant city, was founded in 1654 as capacity on the border Zakamsk defense line. In the nineteenth century Bilyarsk receives the status of the trade merchant suburb, but in the twentieth century (after World War II), the village was deserted again. Today, the village is laid to track Alekseevskaya - Bilyarsk. The village is an iconic architectural ensemble "of the Holy Key", the ancient temple of Archangel and a chapel at the grave of the famous scientist chemist AMButlerov.