The first stage began in the morning of 12 July, when rebels under Yemelyan Pugachev defeated government troops and besieged them in the Kazan Kremlin.

A defensive plan was formulated by the Russian high command and was approved personally by Catherine the Great.

There, government troops were reinforced by gymnasium pupils under headmaster Kanitsa and armed town militiamen.

On 11 July, Pugachev, with an interpreter, approached Kazan borders and demanded that the loyalist forces surrender.

Von Brandt refused to disarm; however, the Tatars quarters sent seventy emissaries with presents to Pugachev.

On 12 July, at four o'clock in the morning, Pugachev convened a council of war, dividing his army into 4 groups.

Beloborodov took Neyelova grove, the area of modern-day Gorky Park and approached the citadel by the avenue now known as Karl Marx Street.

Pugachev's cannons neutralized government artillery and shelled the defenders of the cloth factory under manufacturer Dryablov.

The central stone part of Kazan, mostly settled by Russian nobles and merchants, was set on fire.

Among others, a captive Lutheran priest was appointed colonel in Pugachev's army, but nobles and resisters were massacred.

Pugachev's family, his wife Sofia Dmitrievna, his 11-year-old son Trofim, daughters Khristina and Agrafena and his brother, were imprisoned in Kazan during the rebellion.

On 13 July he tried to prevent the end of the siege of the citadel, but under the pressure of Michelson and Potyomkin the rebels were defeated and were forced to retreat.

After Pugachev's escape some rebel groups under Bäxtiär Qanqayıv and Usman Timerev continued the resistance, but they were shortly neutralized by governmental troops.

The Tsar's government continued its policy of the support of Muslim nobility and clergy, to prevent similar uprisings as a result of religious oppression in the future.