A wide flood plain, rich flora and fauna of the Kazanka river estuary, created good living conditions for hunters, fishermen and gatherers since ancient times. The first settlements in the Kazan region might have appeared during the Upper Paleolithic. Bones of Pleistocene animals fossils (mammoth, wooly rhino, bison, wide horse), flint fragments, and half-finished flint tools, found there, evidence the presence of ancient people in the area. Evidence of life in the suburbs of Kazan during the Mesolithic is even more convincing. In the 1880th V. I. Zausailov gathered a collection of flint tools in the northern outskirt of the Savinovo settlement, in a flood plain dune of the right bank of the Kazanka river. In 1965 A. Kh. Khalikov, who examined these fragments, found cultural layer and new material, which proved the period of primitive man site (approximately the VII-V millenniums B.C.).

During the late Stone Age, the first stable settlements might have appeared on the area. A site of late Stone Age period was found near Bakalda, the dam, leading to the Kazan wharf. People, who lived there before the III millennium B. C. densely populated the territory above the flood plains of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers. Sites near settlements Kukushkino, Bolshiye Otary, Borovoye Matyushino have been found there. In the III millennium B. C. other tribes, distinguished by ornamented dimpled and comb-shaped ceramics, appeared on the territory. The fragments, found near settlements Derbyshki, Malye Otary, Sukhaya Reka and in the district of the Central Recreation Park and Grivka street, contained thick ceramics with crushed shells, ornamented with comb-shaped notched stamping as well as improved stone tools (channeled chisels, lance points, and arrow-heads).

In the middle of the II millennium B. C. tribes of conquerors came to the area. Representatives of the Balan culture of the Bronze epoch, included among the wide area of cultures, are considered to be the ancestors of contemporary Baltic-German-Slavic peoples. Typical stone axes, used for fighting, have been found near the settlements Karavayevo, Sukhaya Reka, Derbyshki and Kabachishche. During the period from the second half of the II to the beginning of the I millenniums B. C. local Oriental-Finnish tribes had been gathered in the Lower Kazan Region. Fragments, left by them, trace the influence of earlier traditions of the culture, which was called “the Kazanien” by researches). In the suburbs of Kazan, near the settlements Zaimishche, Savinovo, Bakalda, Kuzemetyevo, Bolshiye and Malye Otary and Pobedilovo station, the fragments were located most densely. The existence of the first protected settlement on the territory of Kazan (gorodishche “Kazanka 2 and the territory of Gorky Recreation Part) is quite essential.

Considerable cultural and historical changes in the Kazan Region fell on the VIII-VII centuries B. C., when local population began mastering hardware and establishing communication with Scythian tribes from the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus. They used metal tools and guns more frequently. The tribes of the Early Hardware epoch left traces of Ananin archeological culture in the Kazan region. In the III-VI centuries A. D. tribes of the so-called Azilian culture lived there. The remained fragments are located as a rule on the place of the earlier ones, such as gorodishche “Kazanka 1” and the Kazan Kremlin. Burial ground of the III-V century, found on the dune near “Old Glass Plant” (now there is an island near the River Station), is of great interest. Finno-Ugric tribes lived in the suburbs of Kazan in the I millennium A. D. The fact is proved by the Late-Azilian fragments of moulded flat-bottomed dishes, made of material with fire clay admixture and tombstones of Boriskovsky burial ground. But the picture of peoples’ settling has changed very much in the IX-XII centuries because of the intensive moving of Bulgar population to the area.