Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: The boy was gone. Death had come for the baby,
Speaker 1: sudden and remorseless. All the hopes and desires and celebrations
Speaker 1: of fatherhood and the family's future were smashed in one
Speaker 1: searing moment of pain that went on and on and on.
Speaker 1: It was the fear of every parent that something would
Speaker 1: happen to their beloved child, and this was his firstborn
Speaker 1: son that he had lost at just six months old.
Speaker 1: His faith taught him that suffering like this was a
Speaker 1: kind of mystery. It had guided him this far, but
Speaker 1: faced with so much loss, he could only ask, in
Speaker 1: a world governed by justice, how could his baby boy
Speaker 1: be taken from him this way? It was a terrible
Speaker 1: and costly question burning its way into his heart. The
Speaker 1: rhythms and responsibilities of his life, and the teachings and
Speaker 1: traditions of his youth, they offered no answers. Blind with
Speaker 1: pain and grief and loss, he set out from home.
Speaker 1: He left his devastated wife behind, and he took to
Speaker 1: the road. He went looking for answers. He traveled by foot.
Speaker 1: The questions would have plagued him for the weeks that
Speaker 1: it took to reach up into the ural mountains, that
Speaker 1: stone spine that split the Russian Empire in two, and
Speaker 1: he followed roads and tracks that stretched higher and higher
Speaker 1: for more than three hundred miles. But he wasn't lost.
Speaker 1: He knew where he was going. He would bring his
Speaker 1: burning questions to one of the holiest places in Russia.
Speaker 1: He would bring them to the Monastery of St. Nicholas.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the only sacred place in its small town.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was surrounded by churches, but it was
Speaker 1: by far the most renowned. It had stood for centuries,
Speaker 1: and it's holy men were legendary. Miracles had been worked
Speaker 1: there in the mountainous upper air. It was a place
Speaker 1: where God reached down and revealed himself. And for two generations,
Speaker 1: a great cathedral reached up from the rocks, the Cathedral
Speaker 1: of Transfiguration, where the massive bell spire and the bones
Speaker 1: of saints welcomed pilgrims from the four corners of the Empire.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the cathedral that called to the grieving Father. No,
Speaker 1: in the face of a lost son, that grand display
Speaker 1: of power was as hollow as the home he had
Speaker 1: left behind. His eyes turned away from the church spire,
Speaker 1: to the outskirts of the monastery grounds, to the border
Speaker 1: of the forest. It wasn't to the monks and the
Speaker 1: priests that the question would go. No, it was to
Speaker 1: the swineherd. It was in a small hut at the
Speaker 1: tree line that the hermit Macarey lived, and that is
Speaker 1: where the questions drove him to the man renowned for holiness, simplicity,
Speaker 1: and spiritual wisdom. Seekers would later remember that Maccari's greatest
Speaker 1: delight seemed to be the chickens who shared his hut,
Speaker 1: and the words the hermit whispered to his small flock
Speaker 1: would have been amicael if they weren't filled with so
Speaker 1: much power. So what was it that he said? Well,
Speaker 1: we know at least one thing Maccari would tell his
Speaker 1: visitors about his own suffering, the sorrows and misfortunes of
Speaker 1: my life, as he called them. If there was one
Speaker 1: thing that a grieving father could understand, it was sorrow
Speaker 1: and misfortune. So maybe it's no surprise that an encounter
Speaker 1: like this could change a man's life when he was
Speaker 1: at his lowest point. Witnessing Macaary's devotion to God could
Speaker 1: become the model for a new way of being. His
Speaker 1: old life and its place in Russia could be left
Speaker 1: behind for a new way, the way of the pilgrim.
Speaker 1: And in this encounter with Maccary he felt the power
Speaker 1: of suffering to bring people together. Maybe that's what laid
Speaker 1: the cornerstone of the relationships that would later make this
Speaker 1: grieving father the most infamous religious wanderer in Russia and
Speaker 1: the world, because having lost his son, he suffered what
Speaker 1: the Czar and Czarina most feared, the death of the
Speaker 1: Imperial air. Because yes, the man who climbed mountains to
Speaker 1: find peace in the company of a religious hermit was
Speaker 1: named Gregory. He was a broken man, and over time
Speaker 1: he would be remade in Macaari's image. That encounter in
Speaker 1: the mountain monastery after the death of his son was
Speaker 1: only the first time that Grigory would seek Macaari's wisdom.
Speaker 1: Through wandering and revelation. His voice would echo down the
Speaker 1: mountains and into the ear of a royal couple desperate
Speaker 1: to keep their own fragile son alive. All of that, though,
Speaker 1: would come in time, but to get there there would
Speaker 1: be many more dark days spent on winding roads on
Speaker 1: his way to becoming resputant. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: It was a place for changing horses, at least if
Speaker 1: you were in a coach rattling along the Toura River
Speaker 1: between two Mean and Tobolsk. Anyone going that way, whether
Speaker 1: in search of prosperity or to some darker destination, was
Speaker 1: likely to make a stop, stretching their weary legs, and
Speaker 1: make sure their beasts of burden could carry them the
Speaker 1: rest of the way. A dead horse goes nowhere, after all.
Speaker 1: So Pakrovska was the place of which journeys through Old
Speaker 1: Russia were made. But from a stop on the road,
Speaker 1: procro Scott grew into a town, A small town anyway.
Speaker 1: It was a community of hunters, fishermen and farmers, raising livestock,
Speaker 1: raising families, and scratching out a life from thy Siberian earth.
Speaker 1: All the better if you had something to offer the
Speaker 1: baggage trains traveling to and from Siberia's oldest city, and
Speaker 1: many of Prokoska's families still found their living in the
Speaker 1: shipping trades. Men like Yafim and his son Grigory. They
Speaker 1: had done fairly well in their work too. On his
Speaker 1: land were the dozen cows and eighteen horses that he
Speaker 1: had pulled together over the years. He started as a
Speaker 1: laborer among laborers, cutting hay and loading the boats that
Speaker 1: passed by on the river. But when he became a
Speaker 1: coachman himself, hired by the state to make the trips
Speaker 1: between two men and Tobolsk, things turned around. By peasants standards,
Speaker 1: at least life was good. Things also turned around at home,
Speaker 1: you see. Similarly, things started off with a kind of
Speaker 1: tragedy that was all too common. None of his first
Speaker 1: four children lived more than a few months. We can
Speaker 1: only imagine the pain that their mother, Anna felt to
Speaker 1: bury so many babies. But in January of eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: Yefim and Anna had a son who survived. It was
Speaker 1: the stay of Saint Gregory of Nissa, so in honor
Speaker 1: of that ancient Christian mystic, they named their son Gregory.
Speaker 1: In the twists and turns of a difficult life, he
Speaker 1: was a divine blessing, the kind of miraculous gift that
Speaker 1: can't be explained and can only be received with gratitude.
Speaker 1: Why does one child live when four others have died?
Speaker 1: If Yafim and Anna couldn't answer that question, they could
Speaker 1: at least give thanks their son was growing up and
Speaker 1: growing strong. Sure he had the typical struggles of a
Speaker 1: peasant boy. That one time he turned his teenage attitude
Speaker 1: against the local magistrates. It got Grigory thrown in jail.
Speaker 1: That must have put honest heart and advice. But the
Speaker 1: boy was freed after just two days. After all, he
Speaker 1: was just fifteen. But it was also an early sign
Speaker 1: that Gregory would not be cowed by people with power.
Speaker 1: Other omens of his later life were likewise appearing around town.
Speaker 1: He got a bit of a reputation as a bit
Speaker 1: of a troublemaker, a heavy drinker, someone for young women
Speaker 1: to steer clear of and for parents to whisper warnings about.
Speaker 1: But every town had one or two, right, It was
Speaker 1: hardly a story to write down in the history books.
Speaker 1: After all, he was just a young laut who worked
Speaker 1: with his father in the carriageman's trade. No doubt, he
Speaker 1: helped his father break horses, handled the tech, and learned
Speaker 1: the power of a bit and bridle. The means of
Speaker 1: managing horses wasn't the only set of rules he learned
Speaker 1: in his teenage years, he was already making pilgrimages to
Speaker 1: the monasteries near his hometown, honoring the faith of his family,
Speaker 1: despite shrugging off its commands to temper his urges and impulses.
Speaker 1: If his mother hoped that a strong faith might help
Speaker 1: Grigory to grow out of his youthful indulgences, all the better.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighties six, when he came home from celebrating
Speaker 1: a Holy Day feast and brought his family joyful news
Speaker 1: he had met a peasant girl named Prescovia, and something
Speaker 1: had drawn the two together. By February of eighteen eighties said,
Speaker 1: even Gregory and Prescovia were married, living in his hometown,
Speaker 1: in his father's house. Actually, Gregory now had a path
Speaker 1: laid out before him, a life of faith, family work,
Speaker 1: and maybe something less palatable around the edges, the life
Speaker 1: of a Siberian peasant laborer. If he was lucky, his
Speaker 1: life would be as fortunate as his father's. Eighteen horses
Speaker 1: was nothing to sneer at. But Gregory's misfortunes also followed
Speaker 1: his father's. His little son died of scarlet fever. If
Speaker 1: Yaphim and Anna had somehow made their peace with the
Speaker 1: grief of losing children. It seems the pain sent Gregory
Speaker 1: out the door and on his search for answers. That
Speaker 1: journey was the first step on his new path, but
Speaker 1: it was far from the end of his old life.
Speaker 1: He would later say that for a while his life
Speaker 1: continued on as before, and by all accounts it's true.
Speaker 1: At the monastery in the mountains he was comforted by Maccarie,
Speaker 1: but he went back to his family, his hometown, and
Speaker 1: his life there. He went back to work too, sometimes
Speaker 1: as a coachman, sometimes fishing the rivers, sometimes farming. It
Speaker 1: was a peasant life, but a pleasant one too. Gregory
Speaker 1: and Praskovia even had more children together. As time passed.
Speaker 1: It seemed like maybe Grigory's renewed faith from his monastery
Speaker 1: pilgrimage had prepared him to endure the life he was
Speaker 1: born into. It seemed like maybe Grigory would follow in
Speaker 1: his father's footsteps. But after more than a decade of
Speaker 1: this life, something changed. He had an awakening. The story
Speaker 1: is unclear, and it's wrapped in contradictory legends, as anything
Speaker 1: is about this man. Some say that he took another
Speaker 1: religious pilgrimage accompanying a young priest, and the man convinced
Speaker 1: Gregory to take up the life of a holy pilgrim.
Speaker 1: Some say that Resputant went on the run from the
Speaker 1: law for stealing horses. His daughter Maria would later put
Speaker 1: it this way. One day, when he was plowing a field,
Speaker 1: he came to the end of a row, looking up.
Speaker 1: A stunning light blinded him as the figure of the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary passed in front of the sun and looked
Speaker 1: down on the man. He blinked to try to clear
Speaker 1: his head, but she only smiled and raised her hand
Speaker 1: gesturing to the horizons. She told Grigory what he needed
Speaker 1: to do, leave his little Siberian town and put his
Speaker 1: feet on a new path. Resputing himself in his only
Speaker 1: published book, would say that he was simply restless, tired
Speaker 1: of peasant life, and feeling a growing thirst for spiritual knowledge.
Speaker 1: Whatever the motivation, the change was sudden and real. He
Speaker 1: stopped drinking, stopped smoking, and stopped eating meat. In every
Speaker 1: aspect of his life, he trying to follow the path
Speaker 1: of men like Macary. Even more important for his family.
Speaker 1: He left home with only the clothes on his back
Speaker 1: and the shoes on his feet. Grigory Resputant set out
Speaker 1: to cross the Russian Empire, from chapel to chapel and
Speaker 1: town to town, to plumb the depths of the great
Speaker 1: spiritual mysteries. He started to wander, and then he started
Speaker 1: to teach. He learned it on the road. A lot
Speaker 1: of what he saw reminded him of home. Peasants everywhere, harvesting, building, plowing,
Speaker 1: and planting. He crossed Siberia on foot, and it was grueling.
Speaker 1: He would go days without food, weeks or months without
Speaker 1: a change of clothes. He was sometimes robbed of what
Speaker 1: little he had. He would later say that he had
Speaker 1: even been hunted by wolves. But to Gregory, these were
Speaker 1: not the worst enemies he faced. No like other saints
Speaker 1: and mystics before him, Gregory says that he was hunted
Speaker 1: by spiritual enemies. The devil attacked him over and over,
Speaker 1: and demons opposed him at every step. They tried, he
Speaker 1: would say, to pull him away from God, to make
Speaker 1: him give up, to make him give in to temptations.
Speaker 1: But Gregory had the weapons to battle them too. He
Speaker 1: beat himself to fight off the temptations of the flesh,
Speaker 1: and wrapped his legs in chains to slow his walk
Speaker 1: a reminder and a punishment for his sins. In Gregory's mind,
Speaker 1: the road became a battlefield. But it's not like Gregory
Speaker 1: only met enemies through his wandering. In fact, there were
Speaker 1: plenty of people who would have welcomed him along the way.
Speaker 1: He found friends and allies in his quest for revelation.
Speaker 1: There were people who would open their doors to him
Speaker 1: and asked him to share what he had learned. After all,
Speaker 1: he was just one of many Russian wanderers that God
Speaker 1: had sent out into the world. Here's historian Helen Coleman
Speaker 1: to tell us more. There was a great tradition in
Speaker 1: Russian life of welcoming pilgrims, of welcoming holy people who
Speaker 1: traveled to shrines, who traveled from village to villa, living
Speaker 1: on donations. These were people who were religious searchers, who
Speaker 1: were trying to become a person that God had made
Speaker 1: them to be, and so there was great respect for
Speaker 1: that sort of religious traveler. It was a life of
Speaker 1: work and wandering, and a life of little rest. Later,
Speaker 1: he would write, everything was interesting to me, good and bad,
Speaker 1: and he had so much to learn. He wasn't seeking
Speaker 1: knowledge from books and from stages. No, that was the
Speaker 1: worst way to answer the questions that he was trying
Speaker 1: to answer. The learned, Grigory wrote, do not go to God.
Speaker 1: They study everything by books, and that knowledge confuses them.
Speaker 1: It was just one of the many reasons that he
Speaker 1: didn't want to become a priest. After all, he said,
Speaker 1: he met many who failed to live up to their responsibilities.
Speaker 1: He had thought of becoming a monk, but the rigid orders,
Speaker 1: days of studying theology, and cycles of trying and failing
Speaker 1: to hold to monastic discipline were the opposite of what
Speaker 1: he wanted. On the road, Gregory was hunting more than
Speaker 1: the abstractions of theologians and the rationalizations of corrupt clergy.
Speaker 1: Like other religious teachers, seekers, and believers of his day,
Speaker 1: he rejected those things. Now he was hunting for spiritual revelation.
Speaker 1: He was looking for something earthier, the crossroads where the
Speaker 1: work of God met people in their ordinary life. And
Speaker 1: in that quest he had lots of examples to ponder.
Speaker 1: Here's Dr Coleman once again. Ordinary people, peasants, s lower
Speaker 1: class people in the cities often did things differently from
Speaker 1: how the priests would have liked them to do. Things
Speaker 1: They had local sites of pilgrimage that were not necessarily
Speaker 1: approved by the powers that be. Local communities would often have,
Speaker 1: for example, icons that they regarded as miraculous that had
Speaker 1: not been officially approved. Official approval was never Gregory's goal
Speaker 1: from the time he had gone to the monastery to
Speaker 1: seek wisdom from Macquarie rather than the monks. It's clear
Speaker 1: that he was more interested in the faith of peasants
Speaker 1: than those in power, and Gregory's journey to find answers
Speaker 1: outside the walls of the church started in a place
Speaker 1: that was more promising than most. After all, he was
Speaker 1: in Siberia and in Restputant's day. That meant that there
Speaker 1: was a certain independence to the people whom he met.
Speaker 1: Back in the seventeenth century, the official Orthodox Church began
Speaker 1: to to modernize and it began to reform and try
Speaker 1: to standardize religious practice. And this was very upsetting to
Speaker 1: many Orthodox believers because as I as I just mentioned
Speaker 1: right orthodox he means right practice and the physical practice,
Speaker 1: the way that one worships is considered to be critical
Speaker 1: to reaching salvation. And so in the late seventeenth century
Speaker 1: you have large numbers of people who left the church
Speaker 1: and became known dubbed as the old Believers. It was
Speaker 1: illegal to be an old Believer, and so many of
Speaker 1: them fled to Siberia and to the farther reaches of
Speaker 1: the Empire. And through all his encounters, the trials with
Speaker 1: enemies and the comfort of friends, visiting shrines, debating with monks,
Speaker 1: and rubbing shoulders with old believers, Grigory Rasputant started to
Speaker 1: harness his idea of what it meant to be human. Eventually,
Speaker 1: his steps did return home. His daughter remembered one day
Speaker 1: when a bearded man who seemed like a traveling peddler
Speaker 1: slowly made his way to their door. She didn't recognize
Speaker 1: her father until he spoke in his familiar voice. He
Speaker 1: had been gone from his home and family for two years.
Speaker 1: They found him a aged man. His daughter Maria would
Speaker 1: later write that he had greatly aged. He took on
Speaker 1: suffering and fasted, sometimes making his family share in long
Speaker 1: hours of prayer, kneeling on the ground, and even beating
Speaker 1: his head against the earth. The stories in his hometown
Speaker 1: began to change the boy who had been a drunken creep.
Speaker 1: He had taken on something new. He had grown. He
Speaker 1: was different now, and alongside the deep suspicions against him,
Speaker 1: a sort of curiosity began to rise up. As his
Speaker 1: daughter would say, grigory began to inspire, not just suspicion,
Speaker 1: but wonder. The town's scoundrel had marched away in the dust,
Speaker 1: and they were starting to whisper that he had come
Speaker 1: back a holy man. By the first years after nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: Rasputin had something new in his Siberian town. He had
Speaker 1: a following. It was a place of contradictions. Siberia was
Speaker 1: a part of the Russian Empire. Yes, in fact, it
Speaker 1: was in many ways the place where the Empire drew
Speaker 1: its power. On the map, it was marked out as
Speaker 1: a treasure trove of precious resources, especially of animal pelts,
Speaker 1: and most of all the Sable Expedition after expedition was
Speaker 1: sent across the mountains into the vast expanse of land
Speaker 1: in search of that wealth, and the scale at which
Speaker 1: that wealth flooded back was enormous. The fox, Sable, and
Speaker 1: Martin firs that came back to the center of the
Speaker 1: Empire amounted to a full scale fur rush for a
Speaker 1: nation with no natural gold or silver to draw up
Speaker 1: from the earth itself. It was the lethal harvest of
Speaker 1: this living wealth that built the imperial power. All the same,
Speaker 1: the vast expanse of land separated from the capital by
Speaker 1: the Ural mountains was far from empty. When a Costic
Speaker 1: mercenary marched in with the soldiers under his command at
Speaker 1: the end of the fifteen hundreds, he found a Mongol kingdom,
Speaker 1: and he smashed it with musket fire. The clash came
Speaker 1: known as the Conquest of Siberia, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: exploring the rest of the massive territory, let alone crushing
Speaker 1: its people, would be the brutal work of centuries. Year
Speaker 1: by year, more towns and villages to the east had
Speaker 1: been gripped by the Empire and forced to pay tributes
Speaker 1: in furs and pelts to Moscow. At least that was
Speaker 1: the idea, but even as the Russian Empire grew in power,
Speaker 1: it still fell short of truly controlling the lands on
Speaker 1: the other side of the mountains. Messages, military marches, and
Speaker 1: the discipline of sharp edged steel all took years to
Speaker 1: transmit from the empire central cities to the farthest reaches
Speaker 1: of Siberia, but that made it attractive to a whole
Speaker 1: different sort of people. Mercenaries traders and ruthless explorers set
Speaker 1: their sights on Siberia. They saw it as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to enrich themselves out from under the eye of the czars,
Speaker 1: and over time it gave them a reputation. Crime was rampant,
Speaker 1: but we're not talking about petty theft. We're talking about
Speaker 1: mercenaries and traders who rigged the game, resorting to robbery, murder,
Speaker 1: bribery and extortion. Crime lords dealing in fur, ivory and
Speaker 1: human lives demanded gifts for themselves and extracted harsh levies
Speaker 1: from the people under their power. For example, if you
Speaker 1: were a native man, you were expected to hand over
Speaker 1: somewhere between one and ten prime sable pelts each year,
Speaker 1: and that's before any extra gifts were demanded at gunpoint
Speaker 1: by the violent man who got himself appointed as your
Speaker 1: local official. Not that Moscow didn't see some part of
Speaker 1: the problem. On the record, agents of the Czar and
Speaker 1: territorial governors were banned from scooping up the land's wealth
Speaker 1: for their own gain or from torturing the local people
Speaker 1: to force more fur from the land. But as long
Speaker 1: as the steady stream of sable was flowing back over
Speaker 1: the mountains. Who was going to stop them? It was
Speaker 1: a distance and a rocky divide that made Siberia a frontier,
Speaker 1: and one historian notes the difference between imperial rule before
Speaker 1: and after the Tsars. The Mongols, he writes, understood that
Speaker 1: ruined people could not pay tribute. Under the Czar's Russian
Speaker 1: frontiersmen showed no such forbearance. They came to plunder. If
Speaker 1: we're more familiar with America's Wild West, well that's only
Speaker 1: because for Americans it's closer to home. Russia's Wild East
Speaker 1: wasn't all that different when it came to the way
Speaker 1: the powers of the Russian Empire thought about the land
Speaker 1: that stretched away in great plains and rocky mountains from
Speaker 1: the seats of their society. By Restputants day, things had
Speaker 1: begun to change, though. Increasingly farms replaced the hunting grounds
Speaker 1: where the sable had been slaughtered. And if there was
Speaker 1: one thing Siberia would never run out of, it was land.
Speaker 1: So more and more people ran to the frontier, not
Speaker 1: just for wealth, but also for independence, not just the
Speaker 1: freedom to build fortunes far from the Czar's hand, but
Speaker 1: also to practice religious faith out of the Tsar's reach.
Speaker 1: So Iberia, you see, was in some ways a place
Speaker 1: of religious freedom. Here's Heather Coleman again, Russian religion was
Speaker 1: different east of the Earls. In Siberia you have much
Speaker 1: more old belief, much more religious sectarianism. Because the area
Speaker 1: east of the Earls was a place where religious dissenters
Speaker 1: fled in the early modern period to get away from
Speaker 1: the power of the state. There's a kind of a
Speaker 1: frontier atmosphere. The official church infrastructure was much less developed.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't exaggerate this. In western Siberia we have ancient diocese,
Speaker 1: but there's there's very little by way of seminary education
Speaker 1: and and so on. So so certainly the church has
Speaker 1: much more trouble regulating religious practice just because of distances
Speaker 1: and variety east of the Earls. Yes, the government sponsored settlers,
Speaker 1: but these proved homesteaders made a place for themselves and
Speaker 1: founded their towns alongside runaway surfs, craftsmen, religious dissenters, revolutionaries,
Speaker 1: disgraced aristocrats, and criminal exiles. When exiles arrived in Siberia,
Speaker 1: though they sometimes found themselves in a strange position at
Speaker 1: home in Western Russia, they were dangerous criminals in Siberia
Speaker 1: they were told that as educated and literate men they
Speaker 1: were made government officials. Of course, I can't help seeing
Speaker 1: hints of the history of Australia in that particular move.
Speaker 1: Like Australia, and like America's Great Plains, Siberia was a
Speaker 1: place of immense size and beauty. It was also the
Speaker 1: stage on which human greed and violence had played out
Speaker 1: for centuries. The counter forces of fortune hunting and families
Speaker 1: seeking a place to practice their religion in peace pulled
Speaker 1: Siberia in different directions and brought up sons who clothed
Speaker 1: themselves in contradictions, simplicity yet cunning, charm yet viciousness, devotion
Speaker 1: yet greed, Men like Gregory Rasputin. The steam rose up
Speaker 1: between them. From their cups of tea. Gregory sat with
Speaker 1: the Father Superior of the Seven Lakes Monastery and a
Speaker 1: group of his theology students. The two men were talking
Speaker 1: about Rasputant's plans and the places he intended to go
Speaker 1: on his next trip. Resputant mentioned that his next journey
Speaker 1: would take him to the capital. The Father Superior would
Speaker 1: later remember thinking to himself that the city would ruin
Speaker 1: the Siberian peasant. But what happened next was the thing
Speaker 1: that convinced him. Grigory Rasputin was filled with divine power.
Speaker 1: Grigory looked into the man's eyes and seemed to read
Speaker 1: his thoughts. The city wouldn't ruin him, he said, after all,
Speaker 1: he went with the power of God on his side.
Speaker 1: After that encounter, the monastery's father Superior became one of
Speaker 1: Grigory's biggest supporters. His word care read some weight in
Speaker 1: the nearby city of Kazan, and when Gregory stopped there,
Speaker 1: he took the city by storm. His bold preaching was
Speaker 1: shored up by well developed confidence, road hardened independence, and
Speaker 1: an ignorance of social niceties, and it was a smash hit.
Speaker 1: He didn't hold back from speaking bluntly, even to the
Speaker 1: highest church leaders in the city. Challenging the father Superior
Speaker 1: of the monastery was only the least of it, and
Speaker 1: word got around. Soon people from across Kazan were coming
Speaker 1: to him for help, for comfort, and for advice, and
Speaker 1: the stories came back out with them, stories of miraculous
Speaker 1: healing of burdens lifted, of a powerful teacher whose words
Speaker 1: cut to the bone. Other more unsettling stories circulated to
Speaker 1: about the way he treated the women who came to
Speaker 1: hear his teaching or for healing. He was seen holding
Speaker 1: their hands, kissing women in public, going with them to
Speaker 1: bath houses. In later years, it was even reported that
Speaker 1: he was found laying in bed with women who came
Speaker 1: to him for spiritual teaching. And there was the way
Speaker 1: he talked. Yes, he was playful with just about everyone,
Speaker 1: but with women, well, the nicknames he came up with
Speaker 1: were less creative and more suggestive. Apparently the love he
Speaker 1: received from God only went so far in satisfying his
Speaker 1: hunger with men too. He was known to be what
Speaker 1: we might call tasteless and insolent, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: feel anything but a creeping disgust at the whispered stories
Speaker 1: that began about how he translated his spiritual influence into
Speaker 1: sexual coercion. He wouldn't be the first, and he was
Speaker 1: far from the last, but it's mystifying all the same
Speaker 1: that these early stories could grow right alongside his reputation
Speaker 1: as a mystic. Maybe it lent his reputation and element
Speaker 1: of risque danger. Maybe it made him a bad boy
Speaker 1: of the road. But of course, even his increasing disregard
Speaker 1: for the sexual boundaries of the people around him wrapped
Speaker 1: in the language of spirituality. And it was this language
Speaker 1: and this teaching that he used not just to convince
Speaker 1: the women around him to follow his lead, but also
Speaker 1: to convince the spiritual leaders in Kazan that not only
Speaker 1: was he not violating church teachings, but had in fact
Speaker 1: his relationships with women were an expression of divine love,
Speaker 1: not only pure but even purifying. For one, he convinced
Speaker 1: the father superior of the monastery just outside the city.
Speaker 1: In fact, when they sat down together to talk theology,
Speaker 1: Rasputin won him over, and soon enough they were friends.
Speaker 1: Of course, that could be because of who else Rasputin
Speaker 1: was close to in the city. One story says that
Speaker 1: what brought him to Kazan in the first place was
Speaker 1: the wealthy widow of a merchant who was grieving the
Speaker 1: death of her husband. Rasputin would have had his reasons
Speaker 1: to get close to her. Some lingering legends recount that
Speaker 1: Grigory was a paid escort on her own pilgrimages. It
Speaker 1: may have even been through her that he met the
Speaker 1: head monasteries and the our command rights of the city
Speaker 1: as well. And no doubt, it pays to have wealthy
Speaker 1: and powerful friends, all the better if they carry the
Speaker 1: enormous authority of the Russian Church. That seems to have
Speaker 1: been one of the lessons respute and learned on the road.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, his time wandering among peasants seems to have
Speaker 1: solidified his belief in the divine order of the Czarist regime.
Speaker 1: But Resputin it became clear to honor God everyone should
Speaker 1: stay in their place. Of course, if you were a
Speaker 1: wealthy merchant or an our command right, well it could
Speaker 1: be nice to hear these things said right into your ear,
Speaker 1: and from a peasant. No less, if that came with
Speaker 1: some rude jokes and maybe a few unseemly encounters on
Speaker 1: the side, well that could be excused. After all, what
Speaker 1: do you expect from a peasant. No one seems to
Speaker 1: have understood this dynamic, with all its limitations, opportunities and
Speaker 1: blind spots, as well as Rasputin did himself. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to stay in Kazan, No, he was going
Speaker 1: to go further. He was going to go to St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: Parsing Rasputant is no simple task, but a century of
Speaker 1: legends has sent generations of people looking for answers, and
Speaker 1: some of them have started by trying to dissect each
Speaker 1: and every part of Grigory's life. His family name is
Speaker 1: no exception. Even in his own day, some people were
Speaker 1: saying that the name Rasputin came from the Russian word
Speaker 1: rasput nick. After all, it means depraved, and what could
Speaker 1: be more fitting for the man, at least in the
Speaker 1: eyes of his enemies. Surely it was a label he
Speaker 1: took as a young man for his predatory habits in
Speaker 1: his hometown. Or maybe it was his father who was
Speaker 1: a predator and he inherited the name and the habits both.
Speaker 1: Not to mention that for years the rumor mill went
Speaker 1: round the clock trying to pin the label of horse
Speaker 1: thief on both Grigory and his father, a terrible accusation
Speaker 1: in any intier community. Most historians, though, would see this
Speaker 1: as idle speculation. After all, anyone who has looked at
Speaker 1: the records can see the name in Siberia going back
Speaker 1: into the sixteen hundreds, And in her father's defense, Maria
Speaker 1: Resputant says that nearly half of the people in their
Speaker 1: hometown and the surrounding regions had the name in their
Speaker 1: family tree. So if the name meant scoundrel. Well, it
Speaker 1: was a widespread accusation, but there's a more likely route.
Speaker 1: It seems that Rasputant probably comes from the Russian word rasputa,
Speaker 1: which meant something more like crossroads and for people who
Speaker 1: built their town along a carriage route between major cities. Well,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But there's a deeper and darker aspect
Speaker 1: of that heritage too, you see. One of the historians
Speaker 1: who has studied Rasputant's life, Douglas Smith, notes that there
Speaker 1: were some odd beliefs about crossroads that were still hanging
Speaker 1: around in Grigory's day. Going back a long way, It's
Speaker 1: not like cross were just a neutral kind of geography. Now.
Speaker 1: They were a place of meetings and not least a
Speaker 1: place of spiritual encounter where humans were in danger of
Speaker 1: coming face to face with a spirit traveling from a different,
Speaker 1: darker place, a place where the spirits you've met could
Speaker 1: be evil. We can't make too much of it. If
Speaker 1: the name Rasputant refers to a crossroads, well what did
Speaker 1: that have to say about Grigory? Maybe not too much,
Speaker 1: But hindsight lets us see a man who straddled worlds,
Speaker 1: who unintentionally was part of toppling them. With his road
Speaker 1: leading him to the capital. Gregory was about to cross
Speaker 1: paths with the most powerful people in the Russian Empire,
Speaker 1: and his fateful meeting with the Romanovs would give us
Speaker 1: the host of legends and rumors that we still know today.
Speaker 1: But when Grigory Rasputant set his sights on St. Petersburg,
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one. After all, the first years
Speaker 1: of the nineteen hundreds would see Nicholas and Alexandra facing
Speaker 1: opponents on every field, both foreign and domestic. War and
Speaker 1: revolution came to the Empire, and before the year nineteen
Speaker 1: o five was out, the land ruled by the czars
Speaker 1: would already be slipping from one world into the next.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just Grigory Rasputin whose life was at
Speaker 1: a crossroads. It was the Romanov family as well, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the entirety of Imperial Russia. That's it for
Speaker 1: this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short
Speaker 1: sponsor break for a preview of what's in store for
Speaker 1: next week. When the crowd arrived at the palace, the
Speaker 1: infantry opened fire and the cavalry charged. It was a massacre.
Speaker 1: Over one thousand of the marchers were killed, and two
Speaker 1: thousand were left screaming in the street. Nicholas wrote in
Speaker 1: his diary, how sad to the rest of Russia. Though
Speaker 1: it was more than sad, it was an outrage. They
Speaker 1: called it their own bloody Sunday, and they rallied to
Speaker 1: the call. Riots and bombs exploded across the empire. Over
Speaker 1: one thousand government officials were killed. Grand Duke Serge, who
Speaker 1: had married Alexandra's older sister, was hit by a blast
Speaker 1: that scattered his carriage over the roofs of the surrounding buildings.
Speaker 1: Was it enough to challenge the power of the czars?
Speaker 1: Nicholas's sister continued to see the Romanov way it was,
Speaker 1: she said a Lack of Authority. Unobscured was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio, with
Speaker 1: research by Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis, and original
Speaker 1: music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians,
Speaker 1: source materials, and link to our other shows over at
Speaker 1: grim and Mild dot com, Slash Unobscured, and as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening.