The veneration of the spring is connected to the appearance of the life-icon of St. Barbara the Great Martyr. According to one version, a holy fool lived in the village of Kupani, who once led the villagers to the Kupan swamp, where a spring bubbled in a small pit, and an icon lay in the water. According to another version, a deaf-mute boy from the village found the icon, suddenly spoke, and led his fellow villagers to the swamp. There they discovered a spring and the icon of St. Barbara the Great Martyr. In both cases, the icon was found at the source, which was named after the saint depicted on the icon. There is another version: a peasant girl named Barbara from Kupani, against her father's will, decided to enter a monastery. Her father killed her, and at the murder site, a spring emerged, where the icon of St. Barbara was found. The book 'Description of the Parishes of Pereslavl District' mentions that the icon, considered miraculous, appeared at the well where the chapel now stands.

Currently, the location of the miraculous icon is unknown. There is a sign at the spring referring to the icon of St. Barbara in the Church of the Theologian, but this is a modern icon. Before the revolution, the ancient icon was in the Church of John the Theologian, a stone church from the 19th century with two altars, one of which is dedicated to St. Barbara. Until 1782, there were two wooden churches in the village, one of which housed the icon. When the church fell into disrepair, plans were made to build a new temple, but this did not happen. In 1814, a stone church was built, and the icon was transferred there.

According to popular belief, the icon was kept not in the church but in the chapel. After the icon was found, the residents began to build a chapel on a hill, but the icon kept returning to the spring. Then the chapel was moved there. Locals claim that after this, a safe path to the chapel and the spring appeared in the swamp.

The chapel over the spring was burned in the 1930s during the development of the Kupan swamps. It was later restored, but in the 1960s it was dismantled again, and the spring was closed. This was done at the request of local residents, as workers were taking water for machines with dirty buckets. These events are associated with stories of the appearance of St. Barbara. It is said that once a driver, who went down to the spring for water, saw a woman who scolded him for his dirty bucket. The woman disappeared, and people explained that it was the saint. After this encounter, the driver turned gray.

This is how the spring existed until 1992, when the restoration of the place of worship began. In 1998, at the initiative of the national park, a wooden chapel in the style of 17th-century Russian architecture, a bathing area, and a gazebo were built over the spring.