The article analyzes a variety of semantic aspects of the image of Kazan based on a wide literary material (works of authors of the XIX – early XXI century). The starting point of the arguments becomes a persistent stereotype in the interpretation of this image as a place very far from the center of Russia, located on the border of Europe and Asia. The analysis of the local text through the prism of the opposition of Own/Alien allows us to explain the reasons for the formation of such stereotypes. The biographical circumstances connecting the authors with Kazan, as well as the specifics of historical events reflected in their works, turn out to be significant. The complexity of these reasons causes a negative connotation of city image, a stable tendency to perceive it as alien space. The motive of the prison becomes one of the semantics manifestations of the hostile essence of Kazan.