The Last Tsar - Chapter Twelve Rasputin

Chapter Twelve
Rasputin

'The illness of the Tsarvitch casts its shadow over the whole of the concluding period of Tsar Nicholas II's reign, and alone can explain it. Without appearing to be, it was one of the main causes of his fall, for it made possible the phenomenon of Rasputin and resulted in the fatal isolation of the sovereign who lived in a world apart, wholly absorbed in a tragic anxiety which had to be concealed from all eyes.' - Pierre Gilliard, tutor of Tsarvitch.

On the 1st November 1907, Tsar Nicholas II wrote in his diary a very small sentence - 'Today we are acquainted with a man of God, Gregory Rasputin, from the village of Pokorovskoe, Tobolsk, Siberia.' This small sentence marked the darkest chapter in the history of Imperial Russia.

Rasputin was neither a monk nor a staret (man of God). He was a simple and illiterate peasant. He lived at 64 Gorokhyvia Street in St. Petersburg. He was introduced to the Palace by the Montenigro princesses. One of them was the wife of Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army during the first world war. Rasputin had numerous admirers. Many of them belonged to the upper classes in St. Petersburg. All sorts of people crowded his flat day and night. Some stood in the long line with petitions asking for jobs, promotions and money. Some wealthy men and women satisfied showered upon him gold and silver presents, which he used to send to his wife in Pokorovskowe in Siberia.

Was he a real healer or a fake? What was happening besides Tsarvitch's bed during his illness, when doctors could not stop his haemorrhage, but Rasputin could.

Dowager Empress Marie, mother of the Tsar, said - 'Rasputin was a fraud and a cheat.' 'He was an evil spirit.' What secret lies behind his healing powers?

Pierre Gilliard, Tsarvitch's tutor mentioned in his book - 'Rasputin was a clever cheat who had an accomplice in the Palace, the suspected was Anna Vyrubova, the notorious confident of the Tsarina. When Tsarvitch Alexis fell sick, this theory runs, Rasputin waited until the crisis reached its peak, then, signalled by his ally, he appeared at the precise moment the crisis was passing and took credit for the recovery.

Rasputin's presence near the throne, his influence on the Empress and through her on the government brought the downfall of the Russian monarchy. Why Alexandra placed her fate, her husband's fate, her son's fate, the fate of an old dynasty, the fate of a great country like Russia in the hands of an illiterate peasant?