Sex machine
Although Rasputin appears to be hypersexual - a person with increased sexual activity, in reality everything was exactly the opposite. Rasputin is a man with a sharply reduced sexual potency. If I may put it, it is a semi-impotent.
The monk Iliodor, who knew the "elder" Gregory well, made a kind of register. He divided Rasputin's admirers into four categories. The first - those with whom Gregory washed in the bath, with the second "radel", from the third "he expelled the devil." And only the fourth category is women with whom, according to Iliodor, Rasputin had sex.
The overwhelming majority of female admirers belonged to the first category. Rasputin took them to the bathhouse, forced them to undress, undressed himself. Then they washed his feet, humbling their pride. Judging by the recollections, the matter did not come to intercourse. As well as with the second and third categories. Business was limited to kissing. “He began to kiss me, he kissed me so much that not a single dot remained on my face that the old man had not kissed … He tortured me for four hours. Then I went home,”one of the admirers recalled.
In the fourth category of "victims of carnal intercourse" Iliodor enrolled only 12 women. And even then some were clearly included in the category by mistake, like the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna or the maid of honor Anna Vyrubova, whose virginity was officially established by medical experts under the Provisional Government. So the rest of the "victims" are questionable.
Rasputin knew about his problems with potency, so all his craving for the female sex was designed to psychologically compensate for his own sexual inferiority.
Whip
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Contemporaries who hated the "elder" had no doubt that Rasputin belonged to the Khlyst sect. Moreover, none of them had the slightest idea about the whips.
Rasputin was indeed familiar with the practices of the sectarians. And I borrowed something - dancing till I drop, joy - from them. But an investigation was carried out in the Tobolsk diocese, and Rasputin's accusations of sectarianism were not confirmed.
Gregory turned out to be close to the royal family largely thanks to the Orthodox clergy of the Black Hundreds (Iliodor, Bishop Hermogenes), who expected to use him for their own purposes. But then, convinced that Rasputin was acting completely independently, the priests became disillusioned with him and spread rumors about his Khlysty. Gregory himself always considered himself Orthodox.
Drunkard and rowdy
In the last years of his life, Rasputin drank a lot. Happened, and arranged drunken fights, for example, in the Moscow restaurant "Yar". He also drank in his youth. But most of his life - from 1893 to 1914 - led a completely sober lifestyle.
The "breakdown" occurred at the beginning of the First World War, when Rasputin, trying to prevent Russia from entering the war, lost his affection for Nicholas II. Later he again became a member of the royal family, but then a general persecution of the "elder" began, to which the king's relatives, politicians, and the press joined in. Unable to withstand the psychological stress, Rasputin embarked on a spree, which did not stop until the very end. At the same time, the "elder" drank not a traditional Russian drink - vodka, but wine, mainly Madeira.
Restaurant "Yar" on the Petersburg highway - favorite institution of Moscow bohemia.
Healer
It is often written that Rasputin's influence on the royal family was due to the fact that he knew how to "speak blood" to the heir Alexei, who was sick with hemophilia. Indeed, after Gregory's "psychotherapeutic" sessions, the heir often felt relief.
This point should not be exaggerated. The heir's teacher Pierre Gilliard recalls that Grigory "came to Alexei Nikolaevich only on very rare occasions." Dr. Evgeny Botkin, who served the royal family for more than 10 years, saw Rasputin only once. In addition, the "elder" was introduced to the imperial couple on November 1, 1905. Only in 1907 was he first admitted to the treatment of the heir. During this time, Rasputin had already managed to become his man in the palace.
The ability of the "elder" to alleviate the suffering of the heir played a role, but the long-term attachment of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna to Rasputin was explained by others. He personified the common people, on whose support the emperor and empress were counting, desperate to get this support from the eternally oppositional intelligentsia.
On his mother's side, Alexei inherited hemophilia, which was carried by some of the daughters and granddaughters of the English Queen Victoria.
Ruler of Russia
"Let Grishka Rasputin not be the leader of Russian internal social life!" - shouted Vladimir Purishkevich at a meeting of the State Duma on November 19, 1916. In a month the deputy will be among the murderers of Rasputin.
Another participant in the murder, Felix Yusupov, writes in his memoirs that the "old man" even planned a coup d'etat. We will declare, they say, Alexandra Fedorovna "regent with a minor heir", and Nicholas "will send to retire in Livadia."
Not only the murderers, but almost the entire public was convinced that Rasputin was the ruler of Russia, that the emperor was dancing to his tune.
In reality, everything was more complicated. Yes, Rasputin influenced some appointments, for example, the last Minister of the Interior, Alexander Protopopov. But there is no reason to say that this influence was unlimited. Since the summer of 1915, due to defeats at the front, Russia plunged into a permanent political crisis. Nicholas II tried unsuccessfully to find a way out of it.
By habitual habit, the tsar jumped from side to side. Sometimes, and not infrequently, he tried to make concessions to the Duma opposition. Sometimes, realizing that this would not achieve anything, he acted in opposition to the thought. Hence the phenomenon, which Purishkevich called "ministerial leapfrog."
Rasputin's influence was just one of many influences. If you read the three volumes of the correspondence between Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II for 1914-1917, you can see that the Empress continuously gives advice on personnel issues and often under the influence of “our Friend,” as she called Rasputin. But the tsar did not listen to all the advice. The opponents of the "elder" themselves created the myth about "Grishka - the ruler of Russia" and they themselves were frightened by this myth. And frightened, they developed oppositional hysteria, which led to the revolution, putting an end to both the monarchy and the creators of the myth themselves.
Author: Gleb Stashkov