Grigory Rasputin - Life and Death (brief story) ----------- (my friend Andrzej Durrer-Dudek, the artist, musician and poet, agreed to pose for this character) Grigory Rasputin was born in 1869 in Siberia, arrived in St. Petersburg in 1911 and within a few years had become one of the most influential men in government circles. His ability to remain in such a high position despite widely publicized bouts of drinking and womanizing is no doubt the source of tremendous envy among political figures around the world today. Rasputin's rise to preeminence was due to his close relationship with Nicholas II's wife, Alexandra. The heir to the throne, Alexis, suffered from hemophaelia, and only Rasputin could do what the top medical professors could not: he could stop the boy's bleeding. Because of this, Alexandra believed he was a holy man sent to protect Alexis and she kept him close by at all times, despite the fact that he rarely bathed. Grigory Rasputin is as famous for his death as he is for his life. At the end of 1916, a group of aristocrats in cahoots with the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (a cousin of Nicholas II) decided that Rasputin's influence had grown too great and that he had to be killed in order to save Russia. They lured him to the Yusupovsky Palace on the pretext that Prince Felix Yusupovsky would introduce Grigory Rasputin to his beautiful wife. Rasputin was led to the cellar and fed poisoned cakes and wine, but these did affect him. Yusupovsky then shot the monk at point blank range and Rasputin collapsed on the floor. When Yusupov went to tell his fellow conspirators the good news, they sent him back to make sure he had done the job. On returning to inspect the body, Grigory Rasputin suddenly regained consciousness and started to throttle poor Yusupov, who needless to say was completely scared out of his wits. The Prince fled the cellar, screaming for help; when they returned Rasputin was gone. They found him in the yard crawling towards the gate and proceeded to shoot and bludgeon him. They then bound him and tossed him into the river. When Rasputin's body was found, his bonds were broken and his lungs were filled with water, showing that he didn't actually die until he was submerged in the frozen waters. Before his death, Grigory Rasputin wrote a letter to Tsarina Alexandra: "I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people...I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family." 23 days later, Rasputin was killed, by two relatives of the Tsar Nicholas II 19 months after Rasputin's death, the Russian Tsar and his family were executed
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