Zilant Kazan

Handball in Kazan started as a student pastime at the Kazan Aviation Institute, and in 1993 that section became a club of its own, Aviaklub. Within a few years it was known as KAI-Zilant, and it was that side, with goalkeeper Yuri Ermakov between the posts, that reached the EHF Challenge Cup in the 2002/2003 season. The run did not last: sponsors pulled out, and the club folded in 2007.

It came back in 2022 under the shorter name Zilant, wearing the green and red of the Tatarstan flag. The fiercest test on the calendar is against HC Akbuzat of Ufa, a fixture known as the Tatar-Bashkir Derby. Zilant won the Russian Handball Higher League in the 2025/2026 season. That August, ahead of its top-flight debut, the club took a new name once more, becoming Ak Bars, after Tatarstan's best-known sporting brand.

Now playing among Russia's elite under that name, the club splits its home fixtures between the Miras Sports Complex and the smaller Bustan hall, which seats 974.