The main element of the people of Kazan Khanate was composed of "Kazan Turks" (or Tatars) that included the mixture of the tribes such as the older Bulgarians, Kipchak and Uz people, etc. Moreover, there were some tribes with Turkish roots such as Bashkurt, Chuvash, etc. and the tribes with Finno-Ugrian origins such as Cirmiş, Ar and Moksi, etc. in the country. The people of this country who had Turkish origins had called themselves as "Bulgarians", "Kazanli" or "Muslim"; but the exact time when the name of "Tatar" was attributed to them has not been known clearly. Some of the historians have alleged that the word of "Tatar" had become established in this country under the Russian effect pursuant to the invasion of Jenghiz. Some others stated that the name of "Tatar" cited in the Orhon Inscriptions expressed a Turkish tribe and they alleged that the Turkish tribe named as "Tatar" had lived in this region before the Mongolian invasions based on Kaşgarli Mahmud's map dated 1072-74.
Chuvash people who were the followers of the Shamanism religion and the Finnish tribes paid taxes to the Kazan Khanate and they lived in full freedom within the country. This is confirmed by the facts that they did not rebel against the administration in the course of the maintenance of the khanate, on the contrary, they had participated in all activities of resistance against Moscow, and that a definite agreement was dominant between Kazan people an these "minorities".