Amazing how the entire article fails to mention who lived there.
Staraya Maina was within what was called Volga Bulgaria or Great Bulgarian Khanate (as opposed to the Danube Bulgaria.)
The Bulgars, the ancestors of the modern Chuvash Tatars, had a large empire with 3 cities in the area: Bolgar (their capital), Bilyar, and Balymer.
The Bulghar Khanate was part of the Silk Road. They had extensive trade relationships with the Byzantines, Khazars, Muslims, and Varangians.
Whether Indian merchants or travelers came up the Volga by way or Muslim Persia, Kurdistan, Byzantium, or Khazaran-Atil this suggests a large trade route. The likely source was the Radanites, a network of Jewish merchants who had trade routes from Andalusia (Spain) to Sind (India) and Xin (China). Were I to further guess, I would assume that the traders came through Khazaria, which had a large Jewish population (some portion of its nobility, including some of my ancestors, converted sometime between 740 and 850CE). Trade would have gone through the Khazar capital of Khazaran-Atil, which was at the Volga estuary to the Caspian Sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Bulgaria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars
