The strong stone Kremlin of Kolomna was erected during 1525-31, literally 10 years after the new walls of red brick were finished in the Moscow Kremlin. Kolomna was the second significant city of Moscow area and the most important outpost of defense against the raids from the south. It was for this reason that such strong fortifications were constructed in this place.
According to a version, the construction of the walls of the Kolomna Kremlin was supervised by an Ital-ian architect Aleviz Novyi, who also built the Moscow Kremlin. The walled territory had an area of 24 hectares. The length of the wall with 16 towers was over 2 kilometers. The height of the Kremlin walls reached 20 m, with the thickness of 4,5 m.
Alas, but when they lost their defensive importance, the natives began to pull down the walls and the towers of the Kremlin using them as a free source of building materials. To our days there survived only a small section of the wall between the Marinkina, Granovitaya and Yamskaya (Trinity) towers as well as 7 of 16 towers.
Marinkina Tower is the main landmark of the Kolomna Kremlin. It is the tallest tower. Earlier the tower had different names: Kolomenskaya, Round and Naugolnaya. But since 17 century, after the wife of False Dmitry was imprisoned there in 1614, it has retained the name Marinkina.
As is known, for several years the Polish troops besieged Moscow during the Time of Troubles, and Kolomna was the location of their headquarters. However, consequently they had to leave Kolomna. False Dmitry was killed and his wife Marina Mnishek sometimes called the Witch was imprisoned in the tallest tower. There are different legends about her fate. According to one legend, she died in the tower, and ac-cording to the other legend she turned into a crow and flew away.
