This is the [emphasize] largest city to have the zilant as its symbol, which some sources claim is the beast being slain on another city’s coat of arms. After a 1579 fire in this city, its archbishop Gourias was led by a young girl named Matrona to the buried location of a long-lost object donated by Germanos II. The regent Söyembikä (“say-yem-bee-KAH”) allegedly threw herself from a tower of this non-Moscow city’s kremlin. Both Dmitry Pozharsky and (*) Mikhail Kutuzov credited military successes to praying to an icon of the Theotokos named for this city. Along with the conquest of a city to its south, the architects Barma and Postnik were allegedly blinded after designing a cathedral in Moscow celebrating the conquest of this non-Astrakhan city. For 10 points, Ivan the Terrible gained access to the Volga by conquering what capital of Tatarstan? ■END■
ANSWER: Kazan [accept Our Lady of Kazan or Kazan Kremlin] (Some people have claimed that the depiction of St. George and the Dragon on Moscow’s coat of arms symbolizes the conquest of Kazan.)
<Will Alston, European History>
= Average correct buzz position