RASPUTIN

(1873-1916)

Grigory Yefimovich Novoik was born in 1872, in Pokrovskoye, Siberia. When he was a small boy, thanks to his witty intelligence, he earned the nickname of “Raspitnik” (little rogue) and by that name he was to become famous.

In his youth, his power of seduction became evident when, with the apparent purpose of constructing a temple, he started begging, and the peasants would give him everything of value they had after just looking once into his eyes.

When he was twenty, he met the sect of the “Klysty” or flagellants and, a little later, he became their leader.

In 1903, he traveled to St. Petersburg, and soon he became the protégé of the Duke Nicolaevich and the Duchess Militza. Then the great patriarch Theophanes introduced him to Tsar Nicholas II and to the Tsarina Alexandra. Rasputin healed the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Aleksei, who suffered from hemophilia. With this gesture he gained the royal family’s complete trust up to the point that he became the power behind the throne.

In 1915, he published a text called “Wanderings Through Holy Places.” That same year he was accused of spying for Germany.

In 1916, the president of the Parliament asked for his head before the senators. A conspiracy to murder him began, led by Prince Yusupov. The evening of December 30th of that same year, Rasputin was poisoned, shot, and thrown into the Nevka River.

In 1917, Tsar Nicolas II was executed by the Bolsheviks together with his whole family. Only the young Anastasia Romanova survived, and historians were never able to find her whereabouts.

 ***

SIBERIAN THAUMATURGY

I have told you, my friend, every detail that you have asked to help you eliminate tsarism from our beloved Russia. Nevertheless, here vodka is always plentiful and it is enough for me to tell another story from which you will profit.

It all started on Tuesday, December 22nd, 1916. That day the boreal hemisphere had celebrated the solar feast of winter and St. Petersburg, golden capital of all tsars, shivered under the artic snow.

However, the Duma boiled in the fires of conspiracy.

Rodzyanco (your spies have already told you about him), a man of violent and jealous temper, was still the president of the Duma. Taking advantage of Tsar Nicolas’ absence, he gathered all the senators together to place me on the stand.

“Senators, what can one do when all the ministers and everyone around our Imperial Majesty are Rasputin’s creatures? The only chance for salvation is to kill that cursed man, but there is no one to be found in Russia with the courage to do it. If I weren’t so old I would deal with that wretch with my own hands…” said the vile old man hiding under his age and his incompetence.

“Mr. President,” a senator reminded him, “last December, a year after the Great War broke out, our Tsar Nicolas abandoned St. Petersburg to command our troops at the front. He left Tsarina Alexandra in charge of all the Russian internal affairs and she named Rasputin her personal advisor. Are you suggesting, Mr. President, that we betray the Tsar?”

 “No!” yelled Rodzyanco, his spiteful voice drowning all their comments. “That smelly beast, that illiterate autocrat, that Rasputin is threatening our empire as well as each and every one of us. Don’t you understand?”

“Death to the Siberian wizard!” yelled more than half the Parliament.

“Since the decision to kill that pervert must be unanimous,“ said Rodzyanco, “I have called here a certain witness so you can question him freely and decide whether the sinister monk is a danger to the empire or not.” He made a sign and the strong sentinels that held me grabbed me under the arms and carried me to the center of the room.

The Duma turned silent as they saw me come in. They all stared at Rodzyanco, wondering: How dare he drag Rasputin here? And the thing was that my outfit, the beard and the look in general was the same for all of us. All the Klysty monks looked the same unintentionally. Behind me entered Prince Felix Yusupov and Great Duke Dimitri Pavlovich.

“You have dragged me here against my will. If I am accused of something, I would like to know of what,” I said in a calm voice.

“You are not being accused of anything,” said Rodzyanko. “State your name, and tell us what your relationship with Rasputin is.”

“My name is Boris Lamovych,” I lied. “I was born in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, in the Tumen district, in the year of our lord 1872. I have known Grigory Efimovich Novykh ever since; he was also born in the same village in the same year. Rasputin has always been my friend and my teacher.”

 “Isn’t it true that your master is the son of a drunken coachman given to robbery and lechery?” asked Deputy Purishkevich, the author of the plot.

“It is true and real as the self-inflicted scars that my master carries on his back for the sins of his father.”

“Isn’t it rasputnik the term used in Tumen for rogues and evildoers?”

“It is. Since he was a young boy, my master has shocked simple people and fools with his spiritual abilities. The people have given him that nickname, but he has never minded since he too calls himself Rasputin.”

“Is Rasputin head of the religious sect of the Klysty or so called flagellants?”

“Yes, he is God’s chosen!” I answered.

“Doesn’t this degenerate brotherhood claim that it is necessary to sin so you can feel remorse afterwards and that way reach salvation?”

“That is so, Deputy Purishkevich, and it will be so unless this Duma feels it has the power to alter the Gospels since it considers them depraved.”

“The witness should limit himself to answering the questions,” roared Rodzyanco from his place.

“The point is, gentlemen,” continued Purishkevich, “that during his pilgrimage from Siberia to St. Petersburg, Rasputin has been performing in each village orgiastic masses full of sexual excess and all type of licentiousness that have always ended in mass flagellations. That man corrupts the orthodox Christianity of our Russias.”

“Yes!” yelled a deputy from his stand. “I have seen and heard him say after one of his orgies that ‘Salvation will be more certain when you sin with me because I am the reincarnation of the Holy Ghost.’”

Everybody at the Duma stared at him since the naïve deputy had just confessed that he had taken part in our Klysty masses.

“Pilgrim of the devil!” said Prince Felix Yusupov. “That is what Rasputin is. My informants have told me that the satanic monk has not ceased to seduce women, and he sows his rotten seed in every village. Not even the nuns in the convents have escaped his lewdness.”

“What do you have to add in defense of your master?” asked Rodzyanco.

“All St. Petersburg thinks that father John of Kronstadt, abbot of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Convent, is a holy man,” I said firmly since now it was my turn to ask questions. “Wasn’t father John the one who said he had seen in my master the ‘light of god’? And wasn’t he, himself, who introduced Rasputin to all the most influential families of your society? And there’s more! Wasn’t it the same archimandrite Theophanes, director of the Theology School and personal confessor to Tsarina Alexandra Fiodorovna who introduced him to the Romanov Imperial Family? Are you then wiser than your own patriarchs and….?”

“All of Russia is aware of the hypnotic powers that parasite has!” interrupted Duke Dimitri Pavlovich. “Besides, the prelates of the holy synod have come several times to this Parliament to free themselves from that filthy monk and his demonic ways.”

“Yes!” cried out a deputy, “His all-embracing power discredits the State as well as the Church.”

“Our problem, gentlemen, is clear,” reminded Rodzyanco. “Ever since Rasputin saved the life of our Tsar’s only son, little Aleksei, the family’s dependence has become total. This unscrupulous healer has managed to convince the Tsar of all the Russias that the fate of the Romanov dynasty is linked to his.”

“I, personally,“ said Duke Dimitri, “heard him say inside the imperial palace, these terrible words: ‘The Tsar knows that the life of his only son depends on my prayers and that I can, if I want to, crush him and his family… The Tsarina is also aware that if she stopped obeying me, the life of the Tsarevich would be in danger…’

Besides there is a rumor in the palace that Rasputin asked for young Anastasia in exchange for saving the life of the Tsarevich and the Tsars have agreed to it.”

“That is abominable!” someone whispered. “We have to get rid of that smelly beast!” yelled Deputy Purishkevich.

“Let it be so!” yelled unanimously the whole Parliament.

“Lock that monk in the dungeons!” ordered Rodzyenco pointing at me.

The meeting was adjourned and, later that night, Rodzyenco met in his private office with Prince Felix, Duke Dimitri and Deputy Purishkevich to plan the murder.

I escaped easily from the jail and assumed again my real identity; I will not deny that even today I feel a great mundane pride and vanity when I remember the way I tricked all those silly deputies. That same year, on the night of December the 30th, Prince Felix Yusupov invited me to his mansion in Petrograd. Knowing my taste for good cooking, vodka and the nobility’s wine, they prepared an exquisite dinner powdered with potassium cyanide.

His accomplices waited in hiding on the upper floor.

Three knocks on the Yusupov mansion’s front door dampened the spirits of the conspirators. Three times the sound had to beat before the prince opened the door.

At the door the host looked at me in astonishment because, contrary to what was expected, I did not show up wrapped in my filthy habit. That night I wore a red silk embroidered shirt and black velvet pants. However, I am sure that what surprised the prince the most was to see me perfectly clean and not giving off the he-goat stench that I usually had in order to offend the nobility.

“Come in, come in, my good friend. You are welcome in this house,” said the hypocrite.

“Leave the door open,” I said well aware of his true intentions, “I want to feel the fresh breeze of the coming year.”

We sat at the table and talked. I ate and drank heartily in the face of

Yusupov’s astonishment who, with the excuse of bringing more liquor, went upstairs to the second floor to inform his accomplices that I did not show any signs of poisoning. And, to everybody’s fear, all the fantastic tales ever told about me became true.

So they decided that the Prince had to shoot me with his revolver. When he went downstairs, Yusupov found me admiring an ivory crucifix on a wall near the front door. The coward shot me then. The shot caused the accomplices to stampede down from the second floor and in time to see me escape. They all rushed outside, heavily armed, and followed the blood trail along the large estate that surrounded the Prince’s mansion. There they heard my loud voice among the pine trees, “You useless nobles, who can’t wipe your own asses without the help of servants, will lose all your comfortable possessions because of one action of my will.” Thus I cursed them.

The hunters found me in a clearing of the forest with my arms open, praying to the heavens and without any blood stains on my shirt. Then they all opened fire because of their fear, shooting to the last bullet, and yet I was still standing. Then they jumped on me, kicked me and beat me with fists and sticks. When they had made sure I was truly dead they dragged my body as far as the frozen surface of the Nevka River. There they opened a hole in the ice and dumped me in the waters.

However, I will not deceive you. It was actually six Klysty monks who sacrificed their lives without any hesitation to save their master. They knew death awaited them that night at the Yusupov mansion as they came in, dressed in silk and velvet. I personally chose them between dozens of volunteers. Four died by potassium cyanide poisoning, two more were shot, and we couldn’t give a proper Christian burial to the last one since we never found the body: the frozen waters of the Nevka swallowed him.

That was how it really happened, my good friend Lenin… and if my story has amused you, buy me another bottle of vodka since I…

“I am not impressed by your boring tales, Rasputin. You well know that soon I will send my best Bolshevik forces to eliminate each and every one of the Romanovs.

The Tsars’ seed will be lost forever. You also know, Rasputin, that I will eradicate the Klysty sect from the face of the Earth, the same way you have removed from your body the monkish robes and the prophet’s beard … You know me and you also know that our friendship is not greater than my principles, so tell me… What is the price for your information? I will pay. Leave Russia with your booty and you will save your own life once again.”

 “Go on my friend; transform St. Petersburg into Leningrad. Destroy the Romanovs and exterminate the Klystys. I don’t care. Just give me young Anastasia, alive. She is the price and trophy for the exile you condemn me to.”

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