However, unfortunately for her, Ivan divorced Vasilisa and sent her to a monastery, the usual place where unfavored Russian royal consorts were kept in a form of house arrest.

According to another legend, before her marriage to Ivan, Vasilisa is on record to have been a widow of a dyak, Melentiy Ivanov, serving in the Livonian War.

Though the Tsar considered her beautiful and sweet natured, a few months after their marriage, he discovered her having an affair with a prince named Devletev.

[2] Of all the eight wives of Ivan the Terrible, only Maria Dolgorukaya (who is also considered a 19th-century fraud) and Vasilisa Melentyeva do not have graves or any mentions in official court documents.

[1][4] There is apparently no evidence of her existence in the early modern sources except two minor mentions: the first, cited by Nikolay Karamzin, simply listed her name "as concubine" with Ivan's other spouses.