The Grand Dukes of Moscow (starting with Dmitry Donskoy) supported this monastic establishment in order to expand their influence in the Russian North. Vasily III of Moscow visited the monastery personally in 1528, when he and his wife Elena, childless for a long time, had set on a pilgrimage across the Russian North to pray for a child. Their son Ivan is known to have prayed before from the monastery before his decisive attack on Kazan in 1552. On December 16, 1612, the monastery was captured and burned by Polish-Lithuanian brigands, the so-called Lisowczycy. As of 1764, it owned more than 100 villages with 2819 male peasants.