Abstract
THE site of Bolgary on the Volga just below the confluence with the Kama has been known since the eighteenth century. It is interesting as the most northerly outpost of Islam.,It is marked by ruins of mosques, baths and other public buildings characteristic of a Moslem town, and on its site have been found tiles, fragments of fresco, mirrors and coins. The inhabitants were Turks of a sort ; another branch of them settled in the Balkans and founded the Bulgar State., On the Volga the Chuvash are their descendants. Their State is mentioned by all the Musulman geographers. After some prosperity lasting from the tenth to the thirteenth century, it was destroyed by the Mongols, but the city lingered on for another century. Its place has been taken by Kazan. Prof. Alexey Smirnov reports that from 1938 until the outbreak of the war with Germany he' has been excavating the site, the White and Black Halls (baths), a minaret, mausolea, a large paved square and remains of wooden houses and grain pits. The baths show the traditional perfection of the eastern bath. The finds are being carefully preserved for the Autonomous Tartar Republic.
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Discoveries at Velikie Bolgary. Nature 151, 300 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151300a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151300a0