In July 2019, I made the nearly 200 km and three hour day trip from Kazan to Bolgar, on the shores of the Volga River. The day before my trip, I took a Yandex to Kazan's port to see if I could get tickets for the supposed boat trip to Bolgar, but (and I'm not sure what I was told by the ticket agent) either the boat doesn't run on weekdays or at all or was sold out, but, in any event, I left empty handed. I also learned that the bus schedule from Kazan to Bolgar wouldn't allow a day trip. So, a friendly and helpful receptionist at my hotel used her BlaBlaCar app to book me a day trip from Kazan to Bolgar. Apparently, an enterprising local, whose sister lives in Bolgar, has decided to make nearly daily trips from Kazan to Bolgar, departing from the MegaMall (a short drive from Kazan's city center) at 11:00am and returning from Bolgar at 5:00pm (so allowing three hours at Bolgar, which was sufficient) for ₽400 each way (about $6.30). Since I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find him at the MegaMall, I paid an extra ₽200 ($3.15) each way for him to pick me up and return me to my hotel. So, a total of less than $20 for the nearly 9-hour day trip.

I shared the BlaBlaCar driver's WhatsApp contact details with Els, so if she's able to repeat the trip and thinks it worth recommending, she might be able to add his contact details to her blog report after her upcoming trip. I asked him if I could share his details, but didn't ask if I could post them on a website. The driver doesn't speak any English, so all of my conversations were via a friendly bilingual passenger.