Was he a saint, a demon, or just a depraved charlatan? Today, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin would probably be called a psychic and would be welcomed in the same way everywhere and everywhere, but then, at the beginning of the 20th century, a Siberian man with a reputation as a great healer reached the very top, becoming the personal doctor of Queen Alexandra and her son with hemophilia …
Treatment came down mainly to relaxing techniques and giving up aspirin, at that time the newest drug, which they tried to treat everything and which is contraindicated in hemophilia. For the royal family, Rasputin was a savior. The rest treated him differently - someone with respect, someone with disgust, but everyone agreed that he exerts too much influence on the royal family, not limiting himself to "healing" and getting into everything. In addition, Rasputin behaved in accordance with his speaking surname and was profligate recklessly, believing that it is good for a believer to sin, because the more you repent, the cleaner you become.
By the beginning of the First World War, society was already set against both the tsar and Rasputin, seeing in them all the troubles of Russia. Attempts on the life of the "holy elder" began, but each time he managed to mystically survive, and only in December 1916 another attempt to kill him succeeded. An interesting fact: after the execution of the royal family, medallions with a photograph of Rasputin were found on the chest of all women. Apparently, he had to protect and heal them after his death, and they prayed to him like a saint. What was this man's secret?
1. Brutal murder
As unusual and amazing as Rasputin's life was, his death became just as insane. A group of conspirators - all from high-ranking families - led by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich decided to put an end to Rasputin's influence on the Tsarina, the Tsar and the entire Russian government. On December 30, 1916, they lured him to a late dinner, promising sex with Felix Yusupov's wife (and the elder, unlike Felix, was eager for women). At dinner, they tried to poison him with cyanide potassium, mixing poison in cakes and wine. There was so much poison that Rasputin had to die on the spot, but it seemed that he did not act on this man … Felix Yusupov got tired of waiting and shot Rasputin in the back - he fell. But the shot only provoked Rasputin - he rushed at Yusupov, trying to strangle him and saying: "Bad boy."His rich noble friends came to the aid of the prince: they shot at Rasputin several more times. He managed to get up and run out into the street, but they caught up with him and beat him with sticks, and then, as if that was not enough, they castrated (!). Then they wrapped the body in a carpet and threw it into an ice-hole - but after opening the found corpse, it turned out that he had fallen into the water while still alive and tried to get out, but he was hypothermic and drowned.
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2. Numerous attempts on life
This was the last, but not the first attempt on the life of Rasputin, the previous ones were simply unsuccessful. So, in 1914, Rasputin was visiting his native village of Pokrovskoye near Tobolsk, and once, right on the street, a woman rushed at him with a dagger and shouts: "I killed the Antichrist!" She really almost succeeded: the blow to the stomach was strong, just a little more - and she could gut Rasputin like a fish. However, he managed to grab the shaft lying on the ground and hit the woman on the head. The attacker was named Khionia Kuzminichnaya Guseva and she was under the strongest religious influence of the Black Hundred hieromonk Iliodor. Iliodor (that still present) was a sharp opponent of Rasputin and threatened to kill him many times, claiming that he had already prepared 120 bombs for this purpose. He did not use these bombs, but - there was a case - he ran after Rasputin with an ax,threatening to emasculate him. However, Iliodor is not alone! There was also such a holy man named Mitya the Blessed - so he also attacked Rasputin, trying to tear him to pieces.
3. History of Rasputin's severed genitals
Even after his death, Rasputin continued to influence the minds of people - at least some part of his body. The severed 30-centimeter member of Rasputin, according to rumors, was found by some lady and kept in a safe place, and later "surfaced" in Paris as a fetish of a group of Russian aristocrats who used him as a sex amulet. Rasputin's daughter, Matryona, heard about this and demanded that her sacred be returned to her. It is said that she kept her father's genitals as a great treasure until her death in 1977. Then Matryona Grigorievna's things were sold, and later a man named Michael Augustin tried to sell the dried "Rasputin's penis" at an auction, but it turned out that it was a sea cucumber. Then,Already in 2004, Igor Knyazkin, the head of the Prostate Research Center at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, opened in St. Rasputin. So, he claims that among the exhibits of the museum there is also a bank with a preserved reproductive organ of the "mad monk", bought from a certain French collector.
4. Predicting your own death
Rasputin solidified his reputation as an all-knowing seer when he predicted his own doom. Shortly before the murder, he wrote a will with terrible prophecies and sent it to Tsar Nicholas. In particular, it says: “If hired killers, Russian peasants, my brothers kill me, then you, the Russian Tsar, have no one to fear. Stay on the throne and reign. And you, Russian tsar, do not worry about your children. They will rule Russia for hundreds of years. If boyars and nobles kill me, and they shed my blood, then their hands will remain soiled with my blood, and for twenty-five years they will not be able to wash their hands. They will leave Russia. The brothers will rise up against the brothers and will kill each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no nobility in the country."
5. He was illiterate … and was not even a monk
Somehow, Rasputin managed to spend several years in a rural school, and then a couple of years in a monastery, never learning to read. It is true: the person who practically "ruled" the Russian government in 1914 and 1915, while the tsar was disappearing at the front, and the tsarina was completely under the influence of the "elder", was indeed illiterate. We, of course, understand that the village of Pokrovskoye of the Tobolsk province was hardly a hotbed of science and culture, but one had to be a very self-confident person in order to spin at the very top with such baggage. By the way, Rasputin, in fact, was not a monk either: there is unverified information that he was a novice in the Verkhotursky Nikolaevsky monastery for two years, but left it at the age of 19 and went to wander around Mother Russia and “help people ".
6. Altruism and bribery
Leaving aside his personal life, we can say that Rasputin was a fighter for social justice of his time. In 1914, he opposed the war. He also advocated equal rights for all (including Jews, which was then extremely unpopular, to say the least), for the support of the poor, against the death penalty. There were several cases when Rasputin defended Jewish business people from government persecution. For example, in 1913 in Kiev there was such a high-profile trial, accompanied by an anti-Semitic campaign - the Beilis case, when the Jew Menachem Mendel Beilis was accused of the ritual murder of a 12-year-old student of the Kiev-Sophia religious school. Rasputin was on the side of the defense. Beilis was acquitted. However, Rasputin would not be himself if he did not know how to receive material benefits even from his convictions. So, if he was asked to put in a word at the imperial court in order, say, not to send his only son to the army, it cost 200 rubles (a lot of money!).
7. Russian sex machine
The song of the Boney M group about Rasputin is not lying: this man was really a "rush of sex machines" and downright tireless womanizer. There were rumors that he was in a sexual relationship with the queen, but this seems unlikely given her extreme hypocrisy. This woman even ordered the bathtub to be covered when not in use, so that this object would not confuse anyone. But it seems that she was practically the only aristocrat in St. Petersburg who did not succumb to Rasputin's insane sexual charisma. He generally had many fans - they gathered in droves on the street in front of his house and waited for him to come out to them. Sometimes they waited for several days just to look at the “holy elder” and give him their gifts. He invited selected lucky women to his place for a private conversation. It looks like the sofa in his office has seen so much in its lifetime,which we never dreamed of.
8. Indecent behavior in society
Most historians are inclined to believe that Rasputin did not have a sexual relationship with Tsarina Alexandra, but this did not prevent him from boasting and saying that he really was. Once Rasputin was in a restaurant with a large crowd of people and, as was his custom, began to boast of the strong influence he had on the Tsar and Tsarina, and of the fact that he had slept with the "old woman." People at the neighboring tables, getting interested, asked if he was really the same Rasputin. In response, he got up and lowered his pants, exposing a huge 30-centimeter member for everyone to see - apparently, this proof was enough. When such rumors were conveyed to the queen, she refused to believe them and claimed that these were the tricks of some impostor running around the city and posing as Grigory Efimovich.
9. Terrible military advisor
Grand Duke Nikolai, uncle of Nicholas II, was an enemy of Rasputin and resented his influence on the tsarina. It just so happened that Tsar Nikolai was not a particularly strong man and often succumbed to pressure from his wife. It went so far that the Grand Duke threatened to hang Rasputin. That is why in 1915 Rasputin advised Nicholas II to remove Grand Duke Nicholas from the post of commander of the Russian army. In fact, using his position as a "holy man", he predicted that Russia would not win the war until the tsar himself led the troops - and the tsar was not ready for this task. This decision was decisive. The Russian army numbered over a million people, and Europe was already in the flames of the First World War. Yet the tsar followed Rasputin's advice and took command of the army himself. He left the government of the country to the queen,and she practically handed over the reins of government to Rasputin, completely trusting him. An extremely short-sighted step, I must say. It was the problems associated with the war and economic problems that led to the growing popularity of Bolshevik sentiments in Russia.
10. A unique interpretation of sin and redeemed eniya
Rasputin's ideas about sin and atonement are quite unusual. He said that sin brings a person closer to God, and he himself successfully implemented this philosophy every day. That is, the best way to be saved is to be in a state of permanent sin. The more drunkenness and sexual orgies, the better, and after the pleasures you just go and ask God for forgiveness, and the ideal situation is when you always ask for forgiveness for your sins. According to the perverted philosophy of Rasputin, a woman who has entered into a relationship with a "holy man" takes on a part of his holiness and is thus purified. So sex with him is a holy, godly deed. And this philosophy worked great! They say that Rasputin also had such a habit - leading women into the forest, where they danced naked, burned incense, and then arranged an orgy.
11. Hypnotic abilities
Back in 1901, in Pokrovskoye, a local priest accused Rasputin of belonging to the apocalyptic sex of the "Khlysty" who performed ecstatic rituals of "zeal" tied to self-flagellation, sex and paganism. There is no evidence of this, and Rasputin himself denied this, but in St. Petersburg, for example, he began to arrange seances. He was credited with incredible hypnotic power, it was said that he can make a person's pupils dilate at will. It was also said that such a strong influence on the royal family is due to nothing more than a hypnotic influence. In general, rumors about Rasputin's healing powers circulated even during his youth, but his parents, for example, did not have a very high opinion of their son's abilities. Rasputin's father said that Gregory became a pilgrim only because he was extremely lazy.
12. Lack of personal hygiene
Do you think that if this man was so popular with women, then he was something like macho or metrosexual (forgive me)? No matter how it is. Take a close look at the picture. It looked like the dude didn't believe in personal hygiene and didn't try to observe it, but it didn't bother anyone. His long beard was always full of stuck crumbs after eating, he rarely washed, and even boasted that he hadn't changed his underwear for six months. He smelled like a goat, and his teeth were like black hemp. It is not clear why all this did not become an obstacle in sexual life, but for some reason it did not become.
13. Unusual rituals
But I must admit that Rasputin often went to the bathhouse - not necessarily for the purpose of washing, mainly for a slightly different purpose, as we understand it. He went there with women, chosen by him from many admirers, and enjoyed life in every possible way. After the steam room, he was whipped with brooms, and then he usually went to church to repent. “There is no repentance without sin,” recall. In addition to personal rituals, Rasputin also had quasi-religious rituals of his own composition. According to Matryona Rasputina's book, her father's adorers worshiped his penis in the literal sense of the word. Their meetings, as a rule, began with some kind of religious ritual, during which he began to caress the breasts of women, and everything ended with a sin of the land. Then Rasputin indulged in meditation for several hours.
14. The tireless drinker and party-goer
Alcohol was another indefatigable passion of Rasputin, besides sex. Preserved eyewitness accounts of the last day of his life. The night before December 30, 1916, the day he was killed, Rasputin spent somewhere drunk. He returned home early in the morning and was "dead drunk." Having slept for only a few hours (it is known that he slept very little at all), Rasputin set off on his usual bath-and-sexual route, and in between his entertainments he managed to use 12 more bottles of 20-degree Madeira (for about 12 hours). In the evening, still standing firmly on his feet, Grigory Efimovich went to a party with Prince Yusupov - where, as he thought, fun, sex and alcohol awaited him again. Well, the party was a success.
15. Perfect marriage?
At the age of 18, Rasputin married a peasant woman, Praskovya Fedorovna Dubrovina, who was three years older than him. They had three children. Praskovya remained to live in Pokrovskoye, while her husband Gregory sailed to St. Petersburg for his glory and his death. From time to time he visited her and - surprisingly - she was completely calm about his riotous lifestyle, knowing full well about him. Or maybe she was just tired or she had no choice. They say she usually said: "There is enough for everyone." Praskovya remained faithful to her husband until the very end. By the way, with regard to the love affairs of Rasputin: he never had any problems on the part of cuckold husbands, since he also knew how to convince them that he was not doing anything wrong - only good.