WEBVTT - S4 – 9: Let This Cup Pass 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcomed, unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.959 She came in with the others. It was a typical 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.399 day for Resputant. Petitioners were lined up outside his door. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.360 They filed in with requests for prayer, for favors, for 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.920 help with something in their lives that was out of reach. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.639 Maybe they wanted healing for themselves or for a wounded 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.360 son who had come back from the front, and she 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:27.880 came in with them. In fact, there's no sign that 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.479 Resputant thought she was any different from the rest. That 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.959 is until she stepped up to Grigory. Something in her 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.440 hand caught the light, and he asked her to show 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.360 it to him. As she approached. Out from under her coat, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.200 she drew a revolver with a ferocious light in her eyes. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.960 She raised it between them and wavered. After a moment, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.519 she broke down. The point of a gun fell to 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.440 the floor, and she offered it to Resputant. She had 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.200 come to kill him, she said, and the secret police 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.960 who were guarding Resputin hadn't see that she was carrying 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.520 a weapon to her meeting with him. She could have 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.720 taken his life then and there, but instead she put 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.280 the gun in his hands, and as she did, she 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:11.840 told him it was when she saw his eyes that 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.520 she realized her mistake. She simply couldn't go through with it. 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.000 What clearer sign could there be that Resputin was God's 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.480 chosen man. He had already survived Guseva's knife attack, the 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.080 plot formed against him by his craven bureaucrats had failed, 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.160 and he had foiled and survived other attempts to This 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.399 became just one of many. But even as attempt after 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:41.160 attempt came to nothing, resputants paranoia grew. Yes, the attacks 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.199 were foiled, but they kept on coming, and they made 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.720 one thing clear to Grigory. Russians, top to bottom, rich 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.800 to poor, noble to peasant, were blaming him for Russia's problems. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.080 There were enemies abroad, but for Grigory Resputin there were 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.960 just as many enemies at home. He had taken every 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.520 opportunity to lift himself into a position of influence, and 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:05.560 now he found out just how much that made him 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:10.079 a target. Sure, I called his reaction paranoia, but then 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.160 is it paranoia if the threats are real? Gregory couldn't 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:16.399 help but see the knife in the dark cutting through 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.919 him and through Mother Russia as well. In fact, at 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.600 some point in his final days he penned a letter 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.800 to his daughter Maria that revealed just how dark his 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.640 fears had become. And when that letter was finally found 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.440 and read by Maria, it's clear that at least in 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.600 this Gregory was not blind to what the future held. 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:41.320 Here's Douglas Smith to read Resputant's words, My dear, A 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:46.280 disaster is threatening us. A great misfortune is drawing near. 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.320 The face of our lady has darkened, and the spirit 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.519 is disturbed. In the calm of the night, there will 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:58.400 be cries and blood. In the great darkness of these griefs, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.920 I can now distinguish nothing. My hour will soon strike. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.560 I am not afraid, but I know it will be bitter. 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.280 I shall suffer, and it will be pardoned to men. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.080 I shall inherit the kingdom, but you will be saved. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.040 The road of your sufferings is known to God. Men 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:24.040 without number will perish, many martyrs will die, Brothers will 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.320 be slain by their brothers. The earth will tremble, Famine 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:34.240 and pestilence will reign. Signs will appear to men. Pray 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.720 for your salvation and through the grace of the Savior, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.000 and have her who intercedes with him, you will be 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:49.800 consoled Gregory. Before comfort, however, would come catastrophe. It was 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.480 almost as if Grigory Recipute knew that it wasn't a 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.480 matter of whether his enemies would finally end his life, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.400 but when they would become the icy hand of death 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:04.800 and drag him to his final end. This is unobscured. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:30.560 I'm Aaron Mackey. It was the autumn of nineteen six. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.840 Alexandra had noticed the change. Gone was the wide eyed, 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.120 zealous holy man. Gone was the triumph and joy in 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.599 his strong voice and his excitement at the ascent into 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.960 the Tsar's palace. Gone even was the man who had 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.640 bragged about overthrowing his enemies and elevated his allies just 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:54.200 the year before. Gregory resputant, was weary, cautious, and withdrawn. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.640 Alexandra wrote to the Czar. She said Grigory was wary 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.040 of going out. He was a fraid for his life. 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.080 When the Empress sent her friends and advisers to speak 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.040 with Grigory and comfort him, he only greeted them with 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.880 screaming fits. But Alexandra's faith was still strong. She believed 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.039 that God was working to keep her advisors safe, and 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.360 it was sunny weather, she wrote. Surely he should take 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.960 the advice he had given to so many others over 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.760 the years, go out into nature, walk the wild places 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:30.000 of earth, meet God there and feel restored. But that Grigory, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.000 he was nowhere to be found. With each passing day, 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.560 Rasputin of Petrograd left his old self further in the past. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.640 Gone were the years when he would travel from monastery 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.560 to monastery, meeting with monks and religious teachers. He closed 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.960 in the walls around himself. He even stopped going to church, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.000 and he drank. One friend would even remember that. It 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.359 was only after spending enough time with a bottle of 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.720 Madeira wine that Rasputant would begin to open up. His 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.000 fear would come pouring forth. One night between the two 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.880 years of rage and despair, he sobbed out the truth 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.640 he had lost the man he had always wanted to be. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.920 He called himself a devil, a demon. I am sinful, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.240 he said, where before I was holy, as they say 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:18.640 in Vino veritas. In those moments of honesty, Grigory knew 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.400 what kind of man he really was. But it wasn't 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.480 only over rest sputant that storm clouds were gathering a darkness, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.360 an electric tension in the air spread over Russia throughout 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.039 nineteen six. Faith in the Tsar was dying, and for 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.560 good reason. It started near the warfront, where battle lines 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.120 were drawn, but it spread eastward into the Empire from there. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.320 Here's Dr Joshua Sandborn to explain. If you're in the 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.080 front line or near the front line, you're experiencing a 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.440 lot of personal insecurity in terms of violence. You're starting 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:52.400 to see a breakdown of social order in many of 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.560 these places, led in many cases by by deserting or 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.239 off duty soldiers. But even far away from the front, 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.560 one of the key things that happens over the course 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.760 of the war is a worsening standard of living driven 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.680 by rapid inflation. This is a problem that ours government 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.920 can't get around. Since the war began, the price of 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.040 everyday items like milk, potatoes, bread, butter, and fish had 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.760 been going up by four or five times their previous price. 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:22.960 In some cases, corrupt officials, bad coordination, and decrepit railroads 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.560 meant that the bodies of the wounded were being carried 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.400 back to distant hospitals, and the food for both the 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.800 army and the nation were often trapped on their way 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:35.040 from point A to point B. You're starting to see breadlines, 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.320 the discussion of the need for rationing, and you're starting 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.760 to see the supply situation deteriorate in terms of trains 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.000 being able to to ship what they need to on time. 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.040 All of these things are are beginning to deteriorate, and 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.400 social relations are also becoming more and more poisonous. Ethno 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.360 politics has done its role there. That's wide sort of 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.720 influx of refugees and the difficulties of dealing with them 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.760 has helped poison the social relationships. The President of the 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.280 Doom wrote in some cases that rotting carcasses changed course 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.080 halfway through their journey. Instead of going to the markets 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.000 where they could be butchered and sold to feed hungry families, 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.600 they were diverted to soap factories, or, if they were 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.440 too far gone, directly to the rubbish heap. Meat that 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.360 was supposed to go to the front for the army, 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.640 it was piled high in mounds. There was nowhere to 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.920 store it, and it wasn't allowed to be sold. Soon enough, 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.360 the mounds began to stink, a poisonous fume and an 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.240 insult to every Russian in the cities, where food was 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.319 growing more scarce by the day. Who Rasputin thinks should 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.880 be the minister of you know, of whatever, you know, 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.640 minister of interior. Let's say that doesn't have a huge 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.080 bearing on people's lives. You know, they're seeing things just 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.320 just collapsing. And it's not the result of a particular 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.840 minister or anything. It's the whole structure. It's it's autocracy 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.040 itself that has led them into this problem. One bitter 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.880 irony is that the starvation of the Russian people had 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.800 weighed heavy on Rasputant's mind for years. Even as he 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.079 was bungling the appointment of government ministers, he was begging 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.960 the Czar to move his Russian soldiers like the pieces 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.440 on a chessboard. It seems that in this case, at 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.600 least Grigory saw where the problems were. With so many 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.000 people lining up at his door every day to spill 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.720 their problems on his desk, how could he miss it 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.800 When it came to food. The cities were in crisis 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.679 by now, though few people in the Imperial government wanted 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.640 to hear what resputant had to say about anything moving troops, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.360 moving food, moving money. After all, what did this holy 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.640 man drunk every night and whispering in the Czarina's ear 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.480 know about any of that. But it wasn't just the 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.280 looming specter of starvation that had the Czar's subjects stirring 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.920 with anger. It was also the work they were forced 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.160 to do. Strikes in the munitions factories had begun at 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.360 the end of nineteen fifteen. And then there's what happened 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.800 further south, in the Central Asian steps that would later 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.920 become Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There was open bloodshed because in 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.760 the spring of nineteen SI team the Czar's military planners 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.640 needed more workers at the front line, a lot more. 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.400 They wanted a million men building bridges and cutting roads 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.480 for the army. The projects were a massive amount of work, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.720 so they decided to force it on the subjugated peoples 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.880 of the Empire. But if you think drafting a million 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.319 men into forced labor at the drop of a hat 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.160 sounds like a recipe for rebellion, then you've been paying attention, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.800 especially once you know that all the wealthiest Russian settlers 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.800 and the imperial governors of those provinces all bribed themselves 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.280 free of the draft. Soon enough, the imperial administrators found 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.720 the telegraph lines cut, the railways destroyed, and the Russian 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:43.000 garrisons under siege. Suddenly, rather than pulling men out of 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.080 the Central Asian planes to serve the Russian army, the 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.440 Czar was sending soldiers in, and it was a blood bath. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.839 Kurgis fighters destroyed Russian towns and killed Russian settlers. The 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.240 Russian army rolled through the countryside, burning buildings and butchering 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:01.280 people who had been the Czar's subjects. Just before, the 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.760 Russian general in command wrote that in the wake of 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.800 his army he saw hundreds of unarmed and innocent Kyrgyz slaughtered. 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.920 That had become another war of ethnic destruction under the 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.760 Emperor's hands. By the end of nineteen sixteen, the Empire 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.800 was at war anywhere and everywhere, and it was falling 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:26.640 to pieces. They had joined the court of Ivan the Terrible, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.000 and something about that era had followed the yusupa family 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.839 down through the years. In those early days, they had 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.679 been warlord's, amassing wealth and hereditary power. They worked their 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.360 way into the royal courts, they converted to Orthodoxy, and 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.800 generation after generation they served the czar well. So well, 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.760 in fact, that in the opening decades of the twentieth century, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.880 as Nicholas and Alexandra took power and the currents of 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.880 history channeled them to their meeting of fate, the heir 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.040 of the Yusupa family was set to receive the largest 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.520 fortune in all of Russia, which is to say, perhaps 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.480 the largest fortune in the entire world. In fact, the 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.160 stories about the family of Felix Yusupov were so extravagant 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.040 and so numerous that they were almost unbelievable. Some said 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.400 that the Yusupov hunting lodge, built in the fifteen hundreds, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.560 was still connected by an underground tunnel to the Kremlin 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.560 in the heart of Moscow. They said that if you 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.920 wandered the underground vaults, you would not see only hordes 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.600 of medieval wealth, tapestries and ornate furniture glowing in the 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.760 low light, but that you might even stumble onto skeletons 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.960 still dangling from chains along the walls. And that was 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.679 the story of just one Yusupov house. But they had 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.640 three palaces in Moscow alone. They had thirty seven estates 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.080 scattered across the Romanov Empire. Their lands included iron mines, 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.720 coal fields, oil deposits, and a string of factories that 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.360 made their family indispensable players in the world of the czars. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.360 And that was the world that Felix was born into. 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:02.560 As Douglas Smith describes, Prince Felix use Soup was a 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:07.760 member of one of the great aristocratic families of Russia. Uh, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:14.040 centuries of extreme wealth and power and prestige. Um, one 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.400 of the truly one of the richest, most powerful families 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.160 in Russia. He was doated on, he was spoiled, um, 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:24.760 he was indulged. Uh. He was you know, sort of 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:29.560 the worst, I would say, examples of the of debauched 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.240 aristocracy in the early part of the twenty century. Nothing 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.040 was expected of him. It was a life of glamor 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.880 of Champagne. He was a notorious boy about society if 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.440 you will, at the time, who really had no purpose 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.960 in life. Felix used to pav shared the preoccupations of 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.880 the Russian elite. Along with his older brother, he gained 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.440 a deep interest in spiritualism and the occult. For a while, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.440 they held seances in their home. They hoped to speak 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.120 to the dead, to hear voices from a world beyond 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.440 their own. Questions of afterlife seemed to terrify Felix, and 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.280 he spent much of his time worrying about his weaknesses, 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.680 the things he might lose. He and his brother even 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.400 promised each other, like many spiritualist friends, that the first 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.080 to die would travel back from the afterlife to appear 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.080 to the other. But it wasn't just his life that 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.200 Felix was worried about losing. It was also the way 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.360 his position allowed him to dominate others. In fact, it 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.120 seems he cared quite a lot about holding onto his 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.200 prestige and power. Even as a child, Felix loved to 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.720 flaunt his position to entertain himself. He would even scoop 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.800 together his mother's jewels and deck himself in her finery. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.760 Then he would order the family's vast household staff to 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.880 gather around him and treat him like a monarch. If 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:49.480 nothing else, he felt born to rule. Details like that 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.840 create an eerie echo of Czar Nicholas, and there are 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.520 others too. Felix's father was also a military man who 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.040 loved being a soldier. He tried to be a kind 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.120 patriarch and there but lacked tact and subtlety. Felix was 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.400 never his favorite son, but eventually Felix was his only son. 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.520 His parents had had doated on his older brother, who 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.040 was killed in a duel, and then all of their 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:19.200 attention and devotion, especially from his mother, Princess Zaida, were 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:24.120 showered upon Felix. In nineteen fourteen, the chords binding Felix 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.400 to the house of the Romanovs were drawn even tighter 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.280 when his mother arranged his marriage. His new bride she 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.040 was the niece of the Czar. But now the blood 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.440 and treasure of the Czar's world were pouring away, not 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.640 just as the war sapped the empire strength and exposed 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.880 its flaws, but at home too. The Russian people had 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.400 been demanding a different world. Step by halting step, Nicholas 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:54.200 had given ground to them. Strikes, revolutions, parliaments, and manifestos 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.480 all were signs that the world Felix loved, with himself 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:02.040 on top, was changing. In his own lifetime and in 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.800 the war years, things were spinning even more out of 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.720 the aristocracy's control, and the voices of the czar subjects 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.880 were growing louder. The household staff of the Empire were 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:16.400 talking back and making their feelings known, as Joshua Sanborn says, 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.040 above all this feeling that the rich are doing okay 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:21.880 in this war, and the rest of us are bearing 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.720 this burden, and look at how badly they're managing it. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.680 This is becoming more and more dominant among all sectors 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.240 of society. Felix used upon thought, he knew who was 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.240 to blame for all of this. He thought it was 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.280 clear who was behind the concessions that Nicholas had made 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.320 to the people's demands, and who it was that weakened 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:44.160 the Empire's power year over year. The peasant from Siberia, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.840 Like many of the avid readers and rumor mongers of 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.480 Russian high society, Felix and his family had closely followed 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.240 the stories published about Grigory and his connection to the Romanovs. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.560 As we heard in the last episode, Felix and his 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.040 mother weren't shy about trading their theories on how Rasputin 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.840 manipulated the royal family. Every new salacious story about the 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.879 Empress and her adviser would have hammered those fears and 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:13.480 suspicions deeper, but it wasn't all just second hand, because 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.440 as a wanderer of the high society salons, Felix Yusupov 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.280 had his own encounters with Grigory Rasputin, and when he did, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.000 the gulf between the two men could not have been 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.320 any wider. In fact, in the things he wrote about Grigory, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.120 you can almost hear the sneer behind Felix's words. When 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.320 they first met, Felix said he saw Grigory had a low, 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.679 common face. The peasants features were, course, he said, and 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.120 his eyes were small, shifty, and sunken under heavy brows. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.919 Rasputant's hair was untidy, his beard was shaggy, and his 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.440 clothes were common and plain. The thing that irritated Felix 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:54.520 the most, though, was Grigory Rasputants self assurance. Simply put 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.440 the man looked like a peasant. He was a peasant, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.800 and so Felix thought that he should act like one, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.000 he should bow and scrape to the rightful rulers of 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.600 the world. But Grigory did not. In fact, Felix said 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.960 that just being looked at by Resputant was like being 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.359 pierced with needles, and Felix never forgot that, and he 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.200 never forgave that either, But for a while Felix kept 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.159 those feelings hidden. His aristocratic friends fell in with Rasputin. 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.520 Some of the women in his circle even became the 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.560 radical followers of the holy Man when they met with him. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.440 Felix even tagged along from time to time, But when 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.320 the rumors began, they found a willing ear with Felix Yusupov. 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.720 For a while, the pampered prince kept his distance. He 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.600 swallowed whole the stories he heard about Alexandra, and as 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.920 the days turned dark, his fear, suspicion, and resentment only grew. 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.560 When Felix's father was dismissed from his post as Governor 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.199 General of Moscow, Felix knew who was to blame, and 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.160 soon enough he found his thoughts turning again and again 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.120 to the peasant and to his belief that this coarse 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:04.040 and shifty must be a German spy undermining the Empire. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.240 He started meeting with other men who felt the same, 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.280 people who had spoken out against the role that Rasputant 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.159 played in the royal household. But he was disappointed with 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.119 everyone he found to be all bark and no bite. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.360 With each passing day that attempts to kill Rasputin came 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:24.040 to nothing. Felix Yusupov, air to Russia's largest fortune, became 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.680 more and more convinced he needed to do the job himself, 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.760 until he decides that he is going to do save 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.760 Russia by killing Raspute and putting together a plot to 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.359 do him in. And this becomes, if you will, his 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.760 e day fixed, This becomes his raised on Tetra, and 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.399 he devotes all of his energies and times to figuring 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.399 out how he's going to do away with Rispute. And 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.440 if there's one thing that a wealthy family of aristocrats 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.439 had learned over the centuries while serving the Oars, it 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:56.880 was how to slide up to someone in a position 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.920 of power and win their friendship, even the real purpose 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:07.679 was to stab them in the back. Their first meeting 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.800 was a shock. Felix had hated Resputant at their earliest encounter, 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.000 but he had described him then as muscular, thin and 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.879 twitching with nervous energy under his peasants attire. Now, in 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.760 the fall of nineteen sixteen, Felix found himself face to 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.000 face with a slumping man, puffy with drink, who was 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.960 wrapped in luxury, and when Grigory started talking, Felix says 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.119 he found it all incoherent. There was a discourse on 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.840 brotherly love. To Felix, it seemed that even Grigory didn't 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.080 understand what he was saying. When a phone call came 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.359 from the Imperial Palace, Grigory rushed off, but not before 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:44.919 he said he wanted to meet together once more. It 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.320 was just what Felix wanted to hear, so they started 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.560 to meet regularly. It was the first step in Felix's plan. 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.440 He would become Grigory's favorite disciple. He would learn how 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.920 Gregory thought, what he liked, and what his intentions really 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.120 were for the Empire. If there were any diabolical con 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:05.320 games that Gregory was running in the shadows, Felix wanted 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.000 to ferret them out. Those were the threads he would 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.119 use to weave a net around rest Sputin and drag 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.520 him in. For months, he bent all of his wiles 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.400 and all of his wealth towards the plan. Rest Sputant's 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.440 daughter Maria, remembered that Felix started to visit their house 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.760 almost every single day. They would send everyone out and 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.960 close themselves up together to talk and Felix would beg 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.240 for prayers of healing and words of advice. He even 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.760 ingratiated himself to the rest Mutants girls. Maria said that 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.639 he became a close friend, and that made everything that 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.600 came next hurt even more, because it was all just 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.600 laying the groundwork for that coming December. Even as Felix 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.439 became convinced that Gregory himself didn't have some sort of 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.359 master plan for the throne, he held even more firmly 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.479 to his conviction that Gregory needed to be killed. In 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.560 Felix's eyes, rest Sputant was a greedy and uncultured peasant, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.240 but he had risen too high for his position to 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.000 be an accident. He must be a puppet for some 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.520 secret masterminds who were exploiting him from a distance to 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.960 bring about the downfall of Russia. So in a way, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.720 become full circle. This was at the height of Resputants power. 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.000 It was the time when the Empress paid the most 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.439 attention to what Gregory advised about running the empire. He 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.240 finally lived up to the rumors about meddling in imperial affairs. 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.240 But even then, when a sharp eyed Felix wormed his 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.200 way into Rasputant's confidence to uncover the truth about his schemes. 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:34.040 He didn't find some evil genius. He simply uncovered a 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.120 selfish man who had improvised his way to the very 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.880 pinnacle of world power by seizing each new opportunity as 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:44.200 it came and abandoning the best parts of himself along 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.760 the way. Now that Grigory had it all, the only 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.160 thing he could do with power was wielded according to 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.880 his paranoia. To protect his fragile position on weighty matters. 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.400 He was mostly ignored by everyone other than Nicholas and Alexandra, 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.520 the rulers whose empire was slipping from their grasp. The 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:05.880 fact that there was no grand plan, no grand conspiracy, 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.960 was too much for Felix to believe. For so long 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:13.000 Russian aristocrats had imagined that the problem with Nicholas was Alexandra, 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.639 and then that the problem with Alexandra was Resputin. It 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:19.280 wasn't hard for someone to simply bump the issue one 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.560 step back. The problem with Resputin must be some undiscovered cabal, 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.720 the real enemies of Russia, whoever they may be. Felix 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:29.720 still believed that the best way to stop them was 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:32.159 to take the tool out of their hand. So he 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.560 put together a team. A wounded army officer who had 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:40.480 been reassigned to Petrograd, a monarchist politician Vladimir Pershkevitch who 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:45.359 had a history of organizing Eliador's terrorist fighters, decorated military 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.320 doctor likewise sent home carrying wounds from the war that 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:54.919 they blamed on Resputin Oh and one other man, Grand 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.560