Bolgar was originally established in the 10th century. The city was supposedly the capital of
Volga Bulgaria from as early as the 10th century. As a result of Russian incursions along the Volga, and internecine fights, the Volga
Bulgar kings (khagans) were forced to intermittently move their capital to
Bilyar. During the
Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria in the 13th century, the
Golden Horde conquered the realm. A Russian annalist wrote: "In the autumn of 6744 (1236), there came from the countries of the East into the Bulgar lands the godless Tatars and sacked the good city of Bolgar and killed everyone from the old to the young and the tiniest suckling, and looted a lot of goods, and set the city on fire, and captured the whole of their land". After the destruction of Bilyar during the Mongol invasion, the former capital lost its status due to the Mongol policy prohibiting the reconstruction of capitals. It lay outside the
ulus itself, but had direct Mongol presence. The Mongols eliminated the existing socio-political structure of the Volga Bolgars. Volga Bulgaria became decentralized as a result and the new city of
Kazan, known as
Bolgar-al-Jadid ("the new Bolgar"), became prominent. The taxation of regions such as Bolgar, Khwarizm, Crimea and Azerbaijan filled the Golden Horde's coffers with great wealth, and the Mongols replaced the sitting rulers of Bolgar and Khwarizm with their own. The late 14th century saw a marked decline in its fortunes. It was sacked by in 1361 during the
Great Troubles. The
Muscovite–Volga Bulgars war (1376) saw
Muscovy and
Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal briefly capture Grand Bolgar and installing their own
doroga and
tamozhnia (customs collector), which probably were existing offices at the time, before the Tatars retook the city. It was endangered by
Timur during the
Tokhtamysh–Timur war. As a Muslim religious center Bolgar persevered until the mid-16th century when the
Khanate of Kazan was conquered by the Russian Tsar
Ivan IV and incorporated into the Russian state. During Tsarist rule the site of the ancient town was settled by Russian commoners. Tsar
Peter the Great issued a special ukase to preserve the surviving ruins, which was the first Russian law aimed at preserving historical heritage.
Little pilgrimage During the Soviet period, Bolgar was a center of a local Islamic movement known as
The Little Hajj; Muslims from Tatarstan and other parts of the
Soviet Union could not participate in the hajj to
Mecca, so they travelled instead to Bolgar. == Monuments and temples ==