After Butlerov had left to St. Petersburg, his talented disciple Vladimir V. Markovnikov headed the department of organic chemistry. He had graduated from the university in 1860 and engaged to the laboratory by Butlerov's reference. Very soon quick wit and outstanding experimenter abilities let Markovnikov became not only the best Butlerov's follower, but also a like-minded person.

Master and Doctor's theses by Markovnikov are dedicated to the development and further studies of Butlerov theory of chemical structure of organic compounds, which marked the beginning of the contemporary organic chemistry. Markovnikov developed his idea of mutual atomic influence in a molecule. The dissertations by Markovnikov with dedicatory inscriptions for Butlerov as well as some of substances, obtained by him, are kept in the laboratory. After eleven years of his lecturing V.V.Markovnikov left Kazan and became the founder of Moscow school of organic chemistry later on.

Alexander Zaitsev, another famous student of Butlerov School, had been working in the Kazan University for all his life. He was the head of the department of organic chemistry for forty years and educated a whole galaxy of talented chemists. Among his students were Ye.Ye.Vagner, A.N.Reformatsky, S.N.Reformatsky, A.A.Albitsky, A.Ye.Arbuzov, and D.M.Marko. A.Ye.Arbuzov said, that "the number of A.M.Zaitsev's disciples is great; in this sense Alexander Mikhailovich, perhaps, takes the first place in the history of Russian Chemistry".

Zaitsev's works are of great importance for the theory of chemical structure and the development of Butlerov's synthesis. They resulted in methods of obtaining alcohol of different classes, which are known as "Zaitsev's spirits" and "Zaitsev's synthesis".
Works by V.V.Markovnikov and A.M.Zaitsev on the addition of galogen-hydrogen acids and unsaturated hydrocarbon as well as the research of reverse reaction of splitting are of great theoretical value. Empirical rules, having been set by these works, are called "Markovnikov-Zaitsev rules".