The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

BOLOAE. 411history of the Russian sects. Kazan is also an important trading place, standingat the intersection of the great routes from Siberia, the Caspian, and the Baltic.About half the population is occupied with trade and manufactures, the chiefindustries being Russian leather, linens, tallow, candles, tanning, distilling, withabout a hundred factories, employing (1875) 3,700 hands, and producing goods tothe value of £2,500,000.Of Bolgar, the old capital of the Volga Bulgarians, nothing remains except asmall village and the ruins caused by Tamerlane in1391, covering a considerableFig. 213.Kazan: The Kreml.space to the south. Amongst them are the remains of the walls and moat, of thecitadel, minarets, palaces, all in the Arab style, and dating chiefly from the twelfthand thirteenth centuries. Here the peasantry often pick up pottery, coins, andjewellery, and a few mendicant pilgrims may occasionally be met wanderingamidst the heaps of rubbish, or prostrate at the tombs of their saints.