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Speaker 1: He walked the road alone. The clothes on his back

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Speaker 1: and the sandals on his feet were the only things

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Speaker 1: he carried with him. And he had a long way

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Speaker 1: to go. After all, he was crossing an empire that

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Speaker 1: stretched from dawn to dusk. He was wandering Imperial Russia, beaten, robbed,

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Speaker 1: even hunted by wolves. His journey was filled with suffering.

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Speaker 1: He even believed he was beset by demons and at

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Speaker 1: war in the spiritual realm. But none of that would

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Speaker 1: stop him, because Grigory was aiming for the empire's heart.

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Speaker 1: That's where the doors of the salons and palaces of

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Speaker 1: the Russian aristocracy would be thrown open to him. Ears

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Speaker 1: would bend to his teaching, and wealthy and sick alike

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Speaker 1: would respond to his murmuring lips. That's right, Grigory Rasputin

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Speaker 1: was going to Saint Petersburg, and as historian Douglas Smith describes,

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Speaker 1: they were hungry for his teaching. There. Elite aristocratic society

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Speaker 1: in Russia at the time was fascinated with very spiritualist leaders,

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Speaker 1: with gurus, and there was this desire to seek alternate

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Speaker 1: ways of connecting with reality that traditional religion and the

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Speaker 1: church were unable to explain to people who were seeking

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Speaker 1: answers to sort of these life's questions that seem to

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Speaker 1: have this pressing urgency right around nineteen hundred. In this

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Speaker 1: season of Unobscured, we will follow Grigory rasputants transformation from

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Speaker 1: a peasant at the crossroads of history to a monster

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Speaker 1: at the center of far too many legends, and in

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Speaker 1: the process learn how he took the weight of a

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Speaker 1: fallen empire with him to the grave. Join us as

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Speaker 1: we make our way into the burning palaces of Imperial

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Speaker 1: Russia to dig up the truth about Grigory Rasputin un Obscured.

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Speaker 1: Season four premieres Wednesday, October six. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.