Marinkina Tower and the Kremlin Wall

The tower was called Kolomna Tower after the Kolomenka River, Round Tower after its outline, and Corner Tower after its place in the fortress. It has twenty facets, and the Kremlin wall runs beside it. From the Kremlin's western corner, people watched the road between Moscow and Ryazan. The loopholes are spread across the tiers with an offset: the lower ones covered the moat and nearby approaches, while the upper ones fired farther away.

In the summer of nineteen oh three, St. Petersburg researchers Georgy Sinyukhaev and Mikhail Ratmanov began excavations in the lower tiers of this tower. They were looking for traces of the famous prisoner: remains, a treasure hoard, any evidence at all that Marina Mniszech had spent her final days here. They were brought here by a legend that had already replaced the tower's former name.

Marina herself lived in Kolomna, but she was not a prisoner then. She was a crowned Russian tsaritsa, the widow of False Dmitry I and the wife of False Dmitry II. Both pretenders claimed to be the surviving son of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible). When the second False Dmitry was killed, Marina sought recognition of her young son Ivan as heir to the throne. Her position rested on the boy's claim and on the Cossacks of Ataman Ivan Zarutsky, who hoped to put him on the throne.

In sixteen eleven and sixteen twelve, Marina lived in Kolomna with the tsar's court: boyars, nobles, and court servants attended her. In the summer of sixteen twelve, Zarutsky left the camp near Moscow, plundered Kolomna, and took Marina and her son south. They tried to establish themselves first in the Ryazan lands, then in Astrakhan. After defeats, they reached Medvezhy Island on the Yaik River, where government troops captured them in the summer of sixteen fourteen.

The prisoners were taken to Moscow. Zarutsky was executed, young Ivan was hanged, and Marina died in confinement before the end of that same year. No reliable document places her in Kolomna after her capture, let alone in this tower.

The legend devised a different ending. In it, Marina was brought back here, imprisoned behind thick walls, and died “of longing for freedom.” Another version allowed her to escape: the prisoner supposedly turned into a magpie and flew out through a loophole. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the writer and local historian Nikolay Ivanchin-Pisarev heard stories from Kolomna old-timers and linked the nameless Marinka from the legend with Marina Mniszech. After he published his conjecture, the popular name took hold, and several decades later it sent Sinyukhaev and Ratmanov to excavate the tower.

Before that, it was called Kolomna Tower, after the nearby Kolomenka River; Round Tower, because its twenty facets merge together from a distance; and Corner Tower, for its position at the corner of the fortress. It was a western watchtower protecting the Moscow–Ryazan Road. Twenty-seven loopholes are arranged in a staggered pattern: the lower ones allowed fire along the moat and the nearest approaches, while the upper ones were for distant targets. One of these loopholes became the magpie's window in the legend.

The excavations of nineteen oh three yielded neither Marina's remains nor her treasure hoard nor evidence of her imprisonment. All that remains of her here is her name. Of its fortress service, eight tiers, the loopholes, and the wall adjoining the tower remain.