Ivan Susanin
According to the popular legend, Polish troops seeking to kill Tsar Mikhail hired Susanin as a guide.
According to the extant royal charter, the lands were granted him to reward his father-in-law, Ivan Susanin, who refused to reveal to the Poles the location of the Tsar.
Subsequent charters (from 1641, 1691 and 1837) diligently repeat the 1619 charter's phrases about Ivan Susanin being "investigated by Polish and Lithuanian people and subjected to incredible and great tortures in order to learn the great tsar's whereabouts but, though aware of that and suffering incredible pains, saying nothing and in revenge for this being tortured to death by the Poles and Lithuanians".
They supported Sigismund III Vasa, who refused to accept his defeat and still claimed the Russian throne.
In woods near the village, they met a logger, Ivan Susanin, who promised to take them via a "shortcut" through a forest directly to the Hypatian Monastery, where Mikhail was apparently hiding.
It is presumed that Susanin led them so deep into the forest that they could not find a way out and so they perished in the bitter cold February night.
Mykola Kostomarov, a historian opposed to Nicholas' regime, was the first to raise the issue of the legend's doubtful historicity because it was in the Ipatiev Monastery, not Domnino, that Mikhail Romanov lived in 1612.
A famous folk limerick is quoted to invoke the cliche in such situations, which can be translated roughly as: "Ivan Susanin, in what godforsaken trap did we land?
