The Zilant — in Tatar the cılan or yılan, the serpent — is the winged dragon bound to the origin legend of Kazan. The tradition tells that the site chosen for the city was a hill so overrun with snakes that it could not be settled until the reptiles were destroyed by fire; but the greatest of them, a winged serpent-king, escaped the burning and withdrew to a lake or a nearby mountain, from which it continued to threaten the young city. Whether menace or protector, the surviving dragon became the enduring symbol of Kazan, and the Zilant passed from folk legend into the heraldry of the city and of Tatarstan, where the crowned winged serpent still stands as its emblem.