The ancient city of Bol­gar sur­vived both the cam­paigns of Tamer­lane and the reign of the Horde. It is here that the largest Quran in the world is stored — as much as 800 kg! His sto­ry proud­ly flaunts on the front pages of the Guin­ness Book of Records. The main archi­tec­tur­al trea­sure of Bol­gar is the White Mosque. It is a white mar­ble ensem­ble that com­bines the authen­tic­i­ty of Islam­ic minarets from Med­i­na and mod­ern mosques with intri­cate arabesques. The cov­er of the Koran is dec­o­rat­ed with mala­chite cloth, semi-pre­­cious stones, pat­terned dec­o­ra­tion made of sil­ver plat­ed with gold and bound in calf­skin.