WEBVTT - S4 – 6: Laying On of Hands 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.480 The throne was in danger, the Church was in danger, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.960 the very state of Russia itself. No revolutionary or foreign 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.640 missionary had done what rest Sputin had done. The imperial 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.080 family was stained. A vestige of the dark ages had 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.280 risen up and taken the Tsar of Russia into his hands. 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.320 That was the message that thundered out into the Russian parliament, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.320 the Duma, on March eighth of nineteen twelve. The speaker, 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.720 Alexander Gukov, was a politician who had been working to 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.960 reform the Russian government since the Revolution of nineteen o five. 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.360 Now he was taking direct aim at the Tsar, and 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.120 Nicholas took it personally. After all, this speech was in 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.040 open defiance of his power, and in a time when 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.720 the press and the church and even the supporters of 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.720 the Empire had gone against the crown, this was a 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.960 new low. The government that Nicholas had tried to control 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.600 was now openly questioning his guy given authority. They were 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.400 undermining him in the very halls of government itself. It 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.280 stung all the more because it was the final exclamation 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.319 point on a process that Nicholas had begun himself when 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.760 he met with the President of the Duma, Mikhail Rosienko. 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.959 A few months before. Nicholas had met with Rosienko in 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.800 the wake of the secret police attacking the press. They 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.160 had discussed Resputant's place at court. They talked over the 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.800 deeply disturbing things that people had observed about Rasputant's behavior. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.319 Rosienko had even read Nicholas letters from the mothers of 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.600 women who had fallen into Grigory's clutches. Rosienko told the 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.600 Czar that the attempts to shut down the press were backfiring. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.480 The more Nicholas tried to silence the outrage, the more 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.560 Russian readers thought that Resputant's evil influence was controlling the throne. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.320 While Rosienko talked, Nicolas smoked. He nervously lit one cigarette 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.720 after another, feverishly puffing and then throwing them on the ground. 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.600 When the President of the Duma was done, Nicholas think 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.840 the man. He was grateful for Rosienko's honesty, he said. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.720 In the following days, Nicholas was quiet. People around him 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.960 saw that he was mulling something over. A few days later, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.840 a sheaf of documents arrived on Rosienko's desk. Nicholas had 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.519 ordered that all the investigations on Rasputant be sent to him. 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.640 Nicholas wanted Rosienko to continue gathering evidence as long as 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.160 he did it quietly. But that's where the President of 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.800 the Duma violated the trust of the Czar, because he 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.640 brought in his political allies like Alexander Gukov. He showed 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.280 them the reports and told them that together they would 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:34.640 save the Emperor and Russia. They compiled a complete report, 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.959 a profile of Rasputin, more comprehensive than anything yet put 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.160 to the page, and then they sent it to Nicholas 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.200 and waited. They were greeted with only silence, a silence 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.920 that was broken by Gukhov's speech to the Duma. But 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.000 if Gukov and Rosienko thought that shouting against the Czar 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.520 in parliament would finally make Nicholas turned back, they were 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.000 badly mistaken, and fact Gukhov's speech was a turning point 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.639 in the relationship between the Duma and the Romanovs. To Nicholas, 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.240 it was a breach of trust. He had asked for 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.560 secrecy and instead was openly attacked Alexandra sent men to 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.560 seize back the documents that Nicholas had sent to Rosienko. 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.960 This wasn't just political now, it was personal, and from 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.560 that there was no going back. The delicate stitching that 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:25.399 held the young constitutional government together was beginning to unravel. 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:56.160 This is unobscured, I'm Aaron Manky. They retreated again, after all, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.279 it was their habit to do so. Nicholas and Alexandra 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.160 didn't stay in the capital. Instead, they went looking for 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.720 places to rest their heads and to leave behind the 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.960 troubles of ruling Russia. In nineteen o nine, when they 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.760 were threatened all the way across the North Sea in England, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.040 it didn't seem like things could get worse. But that 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.280 was before Prime Minister stoy Leapin was assassinated. Iliador battled 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.039 the Tzar and betrayed Rasputant. The press turned into high gear, 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.920 and members of the Douma threw it all in their face. So, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.159 as always, it was time to get away. Following Rasputant's advice, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.880 they went looking for places of natural beauty and peaceful wilderness. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.000 They even found places where they wouldn't be recognized, places 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.400 where they could step in and out of local shops 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.960 without the owners falling to their knees. But as always, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.920 it seemed that no matter where the Romanovs went, trouble 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.640 would follow. That shadow over the family only darkened on 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.840 their holiday in nine twelve and the trouble they ran 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.719 into that year. They would be a decisive moment for 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.200 one small struggle that had recently grown into a major headache, 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.600 their choy to befriend Grigory Rasputin. In fact, the trouble 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.119 and what followed came to be known as a miraculous event. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.840 It became a story that has grown in its retelling 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.440 down the years. The thing is, there was something of 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.279 a miracle about it from the very beginning, at least 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.760 for Grigory's bond with Nicholas and Alexandra, one of the 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.120 crucial moments when the relationship between the Romanovs and Rasputin 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.080 was sealed and their path into the future was written. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.120 It started ordinarily enough, but as we know, even ordinary 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.800 pastimes were riddled with danger for the Emperor's son, little 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.640 Alexei Romanov, and this jaunt through the Polish countryside was 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.839 no different. But he had let his guard down, because 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.680 since nineteen oh seven Alexei had been remarkably healthy. In fact, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.600 the family had stopped holding their breath. They still took precautions, 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.080 for sure, but it seemed like maybe they had learned 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.080 to manage their little boys chronic illness. Here's Helen Rappaport 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.640 to tell us what happened next. In the Ltum Romanovs 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.960 went off to one of on a trip to what 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.839 was Poland what is Poland now but was then part 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:10.039 of the Russian Empire, the big forest near Yellowish And 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.520 they went to one of their big imperial hunting lodges there. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.200 And it was while they were staying there that alex 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:21.960 say Alexey was always very reluctant to do as he 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.800 was told, and he constantly be told by his minders, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.640 and he had a couple of minders who were with 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.400 him all the time not to jump and leap around him. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.440 He risked banging himself, which he did one day getting 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.799 into a boat. He jumped into a boat and bashed 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.960 his hip and it started bleeding in the joints and 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.520 at the top of his thigh. The family leapt into 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.400 emergency mode. It had been a few years since he 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.200 had been injured this badly, but no one had forgotten 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.400 what to do. Alexei rested and, to their relief, recovered. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.920 The family moved on to a smaller hunting lodge in Poland, 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.640 more modest, more out of the way. But as he 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.839 got at her Alexei got more restless. He was really 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.839 getting very fed out with being told by his mother. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.240 Daaned out, Now, you can't do this. You can't go 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.560 off in the bicycle. He can't ride a pony, you 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.520 can't go off with the other children. You just had 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.520 this terrible episode. You've got to get well. And he 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.040 was constantly complaining and fed up would not being able 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.280 to do anything. So in the end Alexandra took him 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.920 out for a coach ride. Maybe Alexandra thought this was 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.720 safe enough. She was with her son and he was 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.760 inside the coach, but the road was far from smooth, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.920 and Alexei was not as recovered as they all thought, 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.640 which meant that every bump and the road could send 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.120 his healing crashing to a halt. And that's just what happened. 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.600 Let's hear from Douglas Smith. He's jostled about and this 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.800 produces a bleeding episode in his leg and it becomes 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.840 quite critical. The doctors are fussing over him. They don't 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.520 know what to do. It's getting worse and worse. The 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.120 boy is in excruciating pain, which is driving his parents, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.880 you know, utterly mad to see their their beloved son 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.960 hurting so terribly. Um it gets to the point where 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.200 they're about to, you know, have a priest brought in 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.680 for the last rites. They don't think that that alex 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.120 A is going to survive. So as sort of a 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:20.480 last ditch effort, Alexandra sends a cable telegram to Rasputin, 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:25.000 who's home in Siberia, for some sort of intercession. And 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.120 this is the moment when we need to step back 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.920 just a bit, because this story becomes a pillar in 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.000 the legend of Rasputin, as if the only thing keeping 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.520 Grigory together with the Romanovs was a mystical healing power. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.760 If on the one side, his story is buried under 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.280 the rumors about Rasputin being the lover of the Russian queen, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.920 on the other side, we can also allow stories of 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.200 his healing power to carry the burden of what we 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.000 now know. So this is a good point to remember 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.600 just how important Gregory had been to the royal family 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.400 down through the years, because the truth is that Gregory 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.200 Rasputin had been a close counselor spiritual adviser and a 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:04.320 comforting friend to Alexandra for years and to Nicholas too. 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.560 Now that much said. When Alexei was injured on the 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.960 carriage ride, there was so much rumor in the air 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.880 that we can only think the relationship between the Romanovs 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.840 and their Siberian friend was delicate and becoming more fragile. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.840 After all, when Alexandra reached out to him by telegram, well, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.959 it was a last resort. In fact, they were so 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.520 certain that their little boy would die that they drafted 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.600 the official notifications of Alexei's death, and Grigory was far 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.840 far away from Poland. But when they thought back to 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.240 that last time that Alexei had been at death store, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.360 they must have remembered that it was under Resputant's hands 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.800 and his prayers that the boy had recovered. What else 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.520 could they credit with Alexei's five years of good health. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.120 So if the Russian public thought that Resputant was out 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.280 of favor with Alexandra, it seems they got it wrong. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.160 All the attacks on Gregory may have soured him in 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.480 the newspapers, but it never truly split Resputant and the 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.200 Romanovs apart. In fact, earlier in the year, at the 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.480 height of the press attacks, the Romanov family was traveling 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.720 in Crimea and Grigory had traveled with them. They had 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.440 been together through the winter and into the early spring. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.199 No matter what the paper said, no matter what the 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:18.120 Duma said, Nicholas and Alexandra were adamant they would not 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.400 be told who they could let through their doors, and 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.240 any damage to their friendship would have been healed. When 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.680 Grigory answered their telegram from Poland that fall, he was 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.920 far away, but his words of comfort touched to Alexandra's heart. 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.320 Leaning over the mattress that might be her son's deathbed, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.440 Alexandra was frantic with fear, that is until she read 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:44.240 Resputant's reply, sent a message but effectively saying, don't worry. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.840 All will be well, the little one will not die. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.559 Don't let the doctors fuss around him too much. And 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.160 when she got that message, of course, she calmed down 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.400 and became The stress sort of vanished from her face. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.000 She came down to dinner first time in about two weeks, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:08.360 and alex I recovered this point this pivotal moment is 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.360 easy to understand. Grigory wasn't there. All he did was 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:16.640 pray and send a telegram. Did he heal Alexei? Most 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.480 historians think that the boy was already on the men. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.560 But the important thing is less Alexei's healing itself. It's 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.720 more about how all this seemed to Alexandra, because in 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:28.920 her eyes, when it came to the life of her 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:34.000 beloved son, this was a second miraculous healing. God had spoken, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.719 Rasputant had shared the message. All was well. Alexander now 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.200 stood on a rock of confidence. As an ocean of 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:47.000 uncertainty washed around her. Terrible things might arise. Waves of anger, violence, death, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:51.160 accusations and slander might crash against her place in the world, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.280 But the Empress of Russia could now stand unafraid. The 0:11:55.320 --> 0:12:02.600 man of God would guide her. Rasputin was a household name, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.120 not just in Russia either. By the spring of nineteen twelve, 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.720 the scandal caused by the Duma taking up the issue 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.559 of Rasputant nesting in the palace had made him the 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.360 subject of even more rumors and wild stories than the 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.240 papers could print. The ambassadors of several countries wrote back 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.079 to their home offices about the mysterious Siberian peasant. Word 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.880 of the religious fanatic with mysterious hypnotic powers was being 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.240 inflated and floated into government offices all across Europe. Of course, 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.960 like most of the trial balloons going up about Grigory, 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.160 most of these reports were collections of the rumors popular 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.480 among the Russian aristocracy. But when the Romanovs had gone 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.280 to Crimea that spring to celebrate Easter, Rasputin also disappeared 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.480 from St. Petersburg society. But his absence didn't silence the conversation. 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.800 In fact, the furious speculation about him only got hotter, 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.120 so much so that the newspapers started commenting on the 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.960 newspaper coverage as its own story. That March, for example, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.400 one article titled Rasputini Anna complained that there was no 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.079 getting rid of the story. It was like Eczema, it said. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.679 Once a paper caught the bug for publishing about Resputin, 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.680 there was no going back. It became an endless flow 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.080 of Grigory's comings and goings, unless there was no news, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.000 in which case it became a perpetual series of guesses 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.000 about where he might be. After all, resputants sold papers, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.160 and speculation was a lucrative business. It was like a disease, 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.920 they wrote, even though the pages were only paper. It 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.240 seemed that Resputant had gone viral, and not everyone was 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.400 happy about that, especially because it all seemed to backfire. 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.480 If the original idea had been to shock the conscience 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.000 of the nation and of the Romanas, the opposite had happened. 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.720 All these headlines about the wandering holy Man only seemed 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.320 to desensitize everyone to the whole affair. The newfound freedom 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.640 of the press was teaching the newspapers a hard new lesson. 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.840 If you yell loud and long enough, you get tuned 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.440 out to be a spectacle. The news has to stay new. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.160 Of course, there was a grain of truth to all 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.720 the reporting. Grigory was going here and there. He traveled 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.720 constantly from Siberia to St. Petersburg, to Crimea, where he 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.880 spent time with Nicholas and Alexandra, back to his home 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.280 then in Siberia. But if the papers were chasing rumors, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.560 the secret police were tracking the man himself. Police surveillance 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.200 reports included Resputant spottings whenever he would arrive in the capital. 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.400 After all, he wasn't just newsworthy. Over the past few 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.840 years he had become the most infamous man in all 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.360 of Russia, and as a close confident of the Tsar, 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.160 that made him a target. If you were against his 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.440 friendship with the Czar, well, it also made him a threat, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.520 and it probably didn't help. The resputants seemed less and 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.040 less like the simple, wide eyed pilgrim who had first 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.720 shown up in the capital almost a decade earlier. For 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.880 years now he had been living the high life. It 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.720 left Grigory looking different to the papers started to comment 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.800 on his appearance. By August, one paper was calling his 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.440 face tormented. The skin was clinging to his owns, and 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.720 the bones were poking through the skin. Dark circles never 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.080 faded from around his eyes. Resputant, it seems, was getting tired. 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.640 Even his daughter Maria noticed the changes when he would 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.600 come home to Siberia. She remembered how much he started 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.360 to resent the visitors in those years. After so much traveling, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.920 he just wanted some peace and quiet, but he had 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.840 raised his profile too high for that. If it wasn't 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.680 reporters and investigators coming by to get a read on 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.120 his most recent events, it was religious seekers. Maria would 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.400 later say her father got annoyed with them, but it 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:35.800 didn't stop a parade of women marching up to their 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.240 front door looking for the little Father and throwing themselves 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.800 on him, grabbing his hands and kissing the hem of 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.000 his clothes. She remembers at one point he ripped his 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.680 hands away from a woman and shouted, I am not 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.760 your father, I'm not even a monk. But nothing stopped 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.560 the downright worship. If he wasn't the devil to the 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.160 people who came prowling at the door, he was a saint, 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.920 and that's not something you can just shake off. If 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.000 the newspapers hadn't changed their mind, what could so. When 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.800 he was home in Siberia, Grigory trying to duck out 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.720 of sight. He avoided the restaurants and ate at home. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.960 He kept to his devotional rituals, which was no meat 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.040 and no liquor. At least that's how Maria remembers it. 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:18.560 The thing is, that's about as far as you can 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.360 get from the life he lived. When he traveled to St. Petersburg. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.720 If his daughters saw one face at home, the Okrana 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.600 in the capital observed something completely opposite. There he spent 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.800 his days and nights out on the town in company too. 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:34.000 He went out with friends, or he made his way 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.840 to the streets and neighborhoods notorious for prostitution. They followed 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.040 him as he picked up women and took them down 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.480 his old paths to a nearby hotel or to a bathhouse. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.280 Sometimes they trailed him as he went from bath house 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.080 to brothel to bathhouse, and he had a new woman 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.840 on his arm each time. It didn't look at all 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.720 like the kind of life he tried to live in 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.480 front of his followers. So if he was starting to 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.040 look haggard and worn out, well, it wasn't just the 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.720 scandal and screw rutiny that was doing it. Gregory may 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:04.280 have been trying to keep the two sides of his 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.800 life separate, but it's not like he was discreet about it. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.359 For whatever reason, he seemed to throw caution to the 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:11.960 wind when he was in St. Petersburg and when the 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.320 Czar was out of town. In later years, even Maria 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.600 would admit who her father became in those years, though, 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.800 of course, whether the drunken stumble between brothels was something 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.399 new for him is hard to pin down. It's just 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.000 that he was finally being watched so much that his 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.600 habits were no longer hidden. His supporters like to say 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.480 that it was the city that had corrupted the Siberian peasant. 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.520 Over time, they called his new lifestyle a spiritual catastrophe. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.160 Churchmen like Theo Fan, who had started by embracing Rasputin, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.480 told the story this way. Try as they might to 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.760 displace some kind of blame from Grigory for his choices, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.200 or to say he didn't used to be so constantly 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.760 on the prowl, it all seemed a bit too convenient. 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.800 There may be some truth to it, no doubt, Grigory 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.639 did adapt a bit to his new surroundings. But we 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.480 can't forget just how much Fan looked past in those 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.000 early years when he thought Grigory could be useful to him. 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.840 Whispers had followed him from Pokrosco to Kazan and onward. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.880 And in the end, there's no debate about at least 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.080 one thing. If there were neighborhoods in any city where 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.560 the virtues of the Orthodox Church were left outside, it 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:23.200 was Grigory himself who willingly opened that door and crept inside. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.639 The crisis was real. The spiritual crisis. That is, whatever 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.040 Grigory may have decided about the way he would live 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.760 his life, he never stopped tormenting himself about the unraveling. 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.879 The sex and the drunken knights in St. Petersburg were 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.560 less the cause of a collapse and more the result 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.760 of one. The real crisis had been working inside him 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.359 all along, no matter how he was living respute and 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.200 held on to his own claim to faith. To himself, 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.520 at least, he was not a fraud or a heretic. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.639 He was simply a man of God who sometimes, maybe 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:02.400 often made miss achs. At least that's what he told himself. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.080 But if the Romanov's dismissed concerns about Gregory as malicious rumors, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.399 others did not, not the members of the Duma, not 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.600 the public, and not the Russian Church. In fact, there 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.639 were some who began to suspect that their earlier investigations 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.240 into his teachings were flawed. In past years, church officials 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.440 had decided that Resputant was no heretic, but after all 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.840 the accusations against him, they decided to look again. In fact, 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.080 one bishop in the city of Tubulsk, near Resputant's hometown, 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.600 took up the subject with some genuine energy. He ordered 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.560 church investigators to send him monthly reports on Gregory, where 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.399 he went, what he taught, who he met with. Despite 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.080 Rasputin being earlier cleared of connections to secret groups of heretics, 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.280 it was exactly the same question they were trying to answer. Now. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.800 It seems obvious that any church leaders would want to 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.240 separate themselves from Rasputin as much as possible. But there's 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.719 a more clear and more personal link to these investigations too, 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.200 because the Bishop of Tobolsk was personal friends with someone 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.040 who had become an enemy of Rasputin, the mad monk Iliador. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.040 Not that the investigations immediately produced damning evidence, though. In 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.680 the spring of nineteen twelve, while Gregory was home in 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.399 Pokrosco with his family, the priest there followed orders. He 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.520 sent reports to the nearby bishop, but there wasn't much 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.479 to say. Gregory went to church, he seemed to be 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.800 working and supporting his family. All the whispers the priest 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.880 could gather only said that Gregory was keeping to his prayers. 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.080 He made short pilgrimages here and there. At home, it 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.879 seemed like he was the devouts and pious peasant his 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.240 daughter thought he might be. But there was one thing 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.879 that raised concerns his followers. In fact, it was one 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.000 of the women who had been devoted to him the longest. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.000 Olga look Tina Gears had passed since she had hosted 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.280 him in the St. Petersburg salons, and in those years 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.720 she had taken to living with the religious teachers she 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.400 liked the best. Sometimes she was living in the band 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.840 of followers at Risputant's house. Sometimes she had been living 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.800 with another fiery preacher, Eliador. And after the split between 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.080 Gregory and Eliador, it seems Olga knew where she wanted 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.280 to be, and so she settled down to live with 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.560 resputants family. But she ran into some conflict with his wife. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.560 Now let's remember that for all these years, when Resputant 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.359 was wandering and climbing the ladder of the Russian courts, 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.000 he had a family at home in Siberia. His wife, 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.960 Prascovia was often left affair without her husband, and their 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.000 children were often without their father. But they may do. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.480 And of course, when Gregory bought the new house, brought 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.400 home the new clothes and rode in with new patrons 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.720 and new money. That wasn't nothing, But Prascovia and the 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.600 Resputant family knew better than most that his ambitions and 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.639 visions came with a cost. In some ways. It was 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.479 a burden that they all had to carry. So when 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.879 their guest, Olga started loudly proclaiming that Resputent ought to 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.360 be treated as God himself, well that didn't sit well 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.760 with his wife. She was the wife of Gregory's younger years. 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.560 She knew that he was all too human, but Olga 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.000 didn't appreciate that perspective, and when she didn't let the 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.200 issue drop, the two women got into a ferocious argument. 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:14.000 I can only imagine the resigned strength of Prascovia as 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.280 she had to repeat that no, her wandering husband was 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:22.639 a charismatic man, but certainly not the God of the universe. Eventually, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.800 Prascovia put her foot down. The fight sent Olga running 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.760 barefoot from the house, and she disappeared. Over time, news 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.600 but trickle back that she had begun wandering from monastery 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.560 to monastery. She was looking for Iliador, and once in 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.200 a while she even ran across reporters who took down 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.040 her accounts and published the story of the wealthy st 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:46.120 Petersburg socialite who had fallen from grace, dragged down by 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:50.600 the talents of Grigory Rasputin. That was enough to concern 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.000 the church, not least because even more concerning stories began 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.280 to come out about how badly Resputant had treated Olga. 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.240