SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Rasputin's death?

you may just want to be aware of that. Are we talking about rest mutin You're darn Tuton. Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, This Charles W. Choke Bryant, and this is stuff you should know the podcast. That's right. Are we doing rest ut Yeah, we're doing rescuting. No disputing, resputing, that's right. Actually there's a lot of disputing, but there's tons of it. The man's whole life is

in dispute. Mystic, hypnotist, possible healer, porn star, Yeah pretty much, not a porn star. He was into some freaky stuff. He could have been. He's a big dude, six foot four. Yeah, I saw that written down, And like, you know, there's pictures of him, which is great because this is the time in our world history where we had photographs of

these folks, right. But even even even that said, like the fact that there are surviving photographs of him when he was just some peasant Russia really speaks to the impact that he had on the people around him totally. There are very few Russian peasantry portraits, you know, or studies of a specific person from like you know, eighteen eighty eighteen ninety even that's a good point, um, But there's pictures of Rescputing before he became famous in those

creepy eyes. Yeah, it depends on the photo. I think. I think some of them they make a little more creepy. Some of them look photoshop, yeah, like the glowing ones and stuff. Plus also and he's like I think he turns it on sometimes to like freak. Yeah, so yeah, we're talking about recipe. I think everybody kind of has a certain idea. He's also known as the Mad Monk, and he was a prolific lover. Yeah, he's a kinky man, yeah. Um, And he had the ear of the tsar and the Tsarina.

The last ones is our Nicholas the second and his wife of the Romanoff. Yeah, the romanof It's another way to put it. So Alexander, Alexandra and Nicholas the Second um invited respute into their court, which we'll get into. Let's just start chronologically here though. Like birth, Yeah, well he was born Gregory if m a bitch resputing in eighteen sixty nine Siberia. Imagine being born in Siberian eighteen sixty nine is just a big ball of laughs, you know,

or in two thousand thirteen. Um, and he supposedly, although this was disputed by his daughter, I believe. Yeah, I want to say, for me, this is so much dispect of the podcast. Resputant had children. Yeah, like, he had a family. He was married from age twenty one and they still exist apparently in in France. One of them lives in Los Angeles. I believe porn Star. I don't think so, but I mean think about it, Resputin and to spare that in mind, he was married and had

a family. Yeah, this whole time, from from age twenty on. Yeah, that's a little weird actually, so his daughter, I believe, disputed this, but apparently early on his religious activity was um and he was involved with a group called the Clists with a K in an age why and then everything else normal and then um they were into some serious, like you know, sexual activity like self flagellation that that erupted into orgies, self flagellation in front of a group,

and then people would be like, Okay, it's humpy time. Yeah, with the idea that in order to cleanse yourself of sins, you just had to do a lot of that sin. Is that right, Yeah? And the reason that they would have orgies was because it was part of their religious belief was that if somebody was having trouble with sin, you had to help them work it out get rid of the sin by doing the sin right. And apparently it was a sin to have an orgy, and so they did it a lot. Interesting and they were hated

among the Russians. Basically, they were mistrusted. They were just viewed on upon as weird, and they were actually fairly subversive, and they knew that they were viewed like this. So one of the tenants of being a Clist was that you went to the church the Russian Orthodox and you were fervent and outspoken and super into the Russian Orthodox Church by all outward appearances. That was what you did if you were a clist. And then and then in your dirty secret was you would whip yourself and have

sex with like twenty people at the same time. Exactly nice. Well, like I said, His daughter disputed that he was involved, although historians say that he was. So who knows. I read that she said that he was rejected by the Clifts. Yeah, well he might have. Well, never mind, we'll get to that. He may have been too much for them. Um. So he built his reputation traveling on Russia as a as a healer, um, as a as a mystic and a preacher, and eventually landed in St. Petersburg in nineteen o five

somehow got introduced to the aforementioned zar and Zarina. Yeah, but before that he had become he had undergone a religious conversion. Apparently from about the age of twelve he was like doing it with anything he could get his hands on. Um. And I don't know what age, but I would say before between twelve and twenty, some monk came through town, came through the village and said, you know what, I think you should come with me the monastery.

I think you're kind of special. You've got some talent exactly, young man. So he took him to the monastery and and that's where Resputing underwent this religious conversion there and came out like for like really fervently religious, like the real deal. Um, he actually walked from Russia to Palestine and back walked. That's not a short trip. Is there disputing that or is that not that I understand? Okay, I haven't seen that disputed, but I think I think

that's a that's a good point to bring up. Anything that sounds even remotely a stretch that's attached to Resputing you should probably take with a grain of salt. Yeah, Because I mean, because he was such an odd, unique individual in art in the world history, there's been like countless stories and I'm sure at the time they were just like rampant story about who this guy was. Yeah, and not only that, most of them were written and

spread by his enemies. He's a very hated person contemporarily, so the original accounts are of people who are trying to make him look bad. And then people started basing biographies on those original accounts, And that's why he's got such a bad reputation. There's so much lower and legend and comfabulation surrounding him. That's so you you don't really know much about him. Well he was for him, he was just like, I'm just just a giant Siberian monk

looking for a good time. Everyone out to get me. Why everybody got so many hang ups? The haters. So yeah, he makes it. He's already kind of known as a star a start it, uh, star it starts, a religious advisor. By the time he gets to St. Petersburg and he's hanging out there, he's like, we're gonna make it in the big city. This is where the Romanovs live. This

is a good place for me to be. And apparently he, like you said, impressed somebody in enough that he was taken to the Roman Austin introduced to them at court. This is might as well be boogie nights. Yeah it is, you know. Yeah, he's Eddie from the Valley Um. Alright, So he does get introduced and warms his way into the inner circle, not warms his way through. He earned his place in the inner circle. Hee did by healing um hemophiliac son Alexis, who was the heir to the

throne and very important to keep around and alive. And uh, he was the only boy in the family. Yeah, despite being a hemophiliac, he would do dumb things like rid horses and fall off them. And apparently on the first time that happened. The second time, um, he was not doing so hot and respute and supposedly healed him, possibly through hypnosis. So with hemophilia, I didn't really realize this. I always thought hemophilia was where you cut yourself and

like the your your wound would cloth. It's that as well, right or not it is, yeah, but I thought that was it. Right. Apparently, the much bigger problem is with internal bleeding. You know what's going on, right, And that's what Alexei had. And uh, they were worried about him becoming a more fanatic, so they wouldn't give him any morphine, so he would just suffer like this, these bouts of

internal bleeding and resputing. The doctors couldn't do anything. And resputing came along the first time and and basically just took away his pain. Yeah, And in the nineteen twelve that happened again. This is after the horse fall, um, and he was I believe not there at the time, and Zarina gave him a ring and said, hey, respute, and we need you to do your thing again. And he sent a telegram that said, don't sweat it. He's

going to recover the next day. And I guess, like you know, long distance hypnosis or whatever happened, or maybe healing prayers, who knows, maybe none of that. Yeah, there's also a hypothesis that he just he exerted the first calming influence over the house about this matter that anyone ever had, and that that in and of itself had a some sort of healing effect. I think supposedly he was known to be a very calming figure with hemophilia. I think to lowering your stress levels will help. Yeah,

I'll bet yeah. Man, the stress is a killer, isn't it. It is literally so Um. At the same time, while this is all going on, uh, like you said, there were people out there that did not like him, um, one of which not the least of which was Prime Minister Peter Stolepin. And he was like gathering a case, putting a case together basically to present and get him ousted from the from the court saying, this guy's a

crazy sex per bard. Yeah, I think he was not the first one to accuse him of being a clist, but like really was taking that and running with it, like he wanted him gone. And he died shot at the opera before he could make this case. And some say that old Czar Nicholas might have been behind that, but we don't know that for sure. Yeah, he was bizarre. Yeah, they were into referens very well in Russia at the turn of the century. Was especially not a cover up

scan else. Um, So Peter Stolypin comes up, he tries it fails, not try to kill him, just try to get him removed. Um we should. Let's let's provide a little backshop here. At about this time, this is a ninetelve um. The Russia is undergoing the world is undergoing a huge transition from agriculture two industrialization, and the Russian peasantry loves the czar. They love those guys. But yeah, in the cities, in urban working classes developing, and they

don't love the czar. They don't. They think the czar is disconnected, out of touch. Is back in these agrarian days and everybody's moving forward into the factories, and that there's no that the Czar has no um love for these new people. And this is where Lennon came from, and the Bolsheviks came from, where these factories. So this is all going on in the background that in Russia. Outside of Russia, Europe is going to war for World

War One. So Russia is torn between these domestic problems and these international problems, and it's headed by a family that is becoming viewed as increasingly out of touch with what's going on in Russia and therefore have are losing legitimacy pretty quickly. And now all of a sudden, there's this weird guy who humps anything that moves and has the ear of the Czar and the Czarina and who

where did he come from? What is what's going on? Yeah, and increasingly less influence on the czar apparently over the years, but increasingly more influence on the Czarina. She was way into him, especially after he healed the sun twice, or supposedly did, and she definitely believed he did. So, Yeah, that's all exactly, that's all it took. And uh, he even called the Mama and Papa, Yeah, it was interesting.

I think that's manipulative. He was probably I take it from my impression that he was being manipulative by calling them that. And I'll bet it was creepy. I bet it was. So he's in the newspapers and stuff. He's he's becoming a well known guy. And I'm sure the industrialists are reading this. And like you said, he was this guy that's at the center of all this, and

he's got this great influence and who who even is he? Even? Well, he he had not only influence, but once once Russia joined World War One, um, well it was our Nicholas goes off to command the army, and um the Czarina is left in charge, which means Ran Sputin is sort of in charge, but very close to being in charge himself. And he was in a position to stack well paying, high level government jobs with friends who were incompetent and inept,

and they almost completely undermine the infrastructure of Russia. Like trains didn't operate, um, armaments weren't built for the war effort, people weren't fed. There was like nobody running the show and nobody who knew what they're doing. I was running the show and it was all resputants fault and this was the last straw. Yeah, this is what led to the revolution. Well and also to some murder attempts. Well, yeah, he's like Bob Marley. People would try to kill him

and it just didn't happen. You know. The first one on sixteen, Um, this woman Konia because Mishna Gouseva. Oh that was good, Chuck, thank you. Apparently was sent by a former friend of his name Sergey Truvanov. He was a monk who was tight with Resputant, but they split up in nineteen eleven because he was kind of disgusted by his you know, humpiness, and uh apparently sent this woman to murder him. And she stabbed him in the stomach um and like it was gnarly. Apparently he had

some entrail hanging out. It was easily immortal wound. But here in the article article they just said like he healed a few weeks later. It made it sound like he healed himself. He had like surgeries and I think it was like, you know, eight to ten weeks of recuperation. I don't think there was like any mystery to that, but they did manage to save his life. Um. But he wasn't the same after that. He became an opium user and the daughter UM was one that was just

like it was just different after that. That sucks. He had bad like stomach problems um, which we'll get too later. Actually that that'll play a role. See, there's one other aspect of respute, and that I kind of gathered about him from researching him, and that was like he had this um, he had this thing he had. He had kind of a light, he had an exuberance, He he loved life. He UM. He didn't seem to be a even though he's been accused of all sorts of manner

of crimes. We don't really know what he did or didn't do back then because again contemporary sources are like is he the devil? But he seemed to have something that was really neat about him, Like he was somebody that I think a lot of people wanted to be around. And the idea that like that went out of his

stomach wound. Let's say it is not as sad as what ultimately happens to him, but but let's keep going, all right, What ultimately happened is a plot was hatched and we'll get to the the newer, possibly truer story. But here's the original story. Prince Felix yusup Off. He was the the husband of the niece of the Czar Nicholas on December. He was also the gay lover of the person who was also an heir to the throne

if Alexei didn't make it who the Brits favored. So he was married to the niece and the gay lover of Yeah, he had both his basis cover basic exactly look good for him. En, that's pretty you know, forward thinking. Sure, so, uh he plotted to we're all going to evolve into bisexual maybe he uh he plotted to kill Respute and to save Russia. And here's where things really like. The details of how this went down are really highly disputed

this day. Um. Supposedly, yeah, supposedly he invited him over said hey, uh, come take a look at my wife. He'd like her. I also read that he said we got a gypsy wine party going on over here, and recipuinges like I'm there. Well, here's here's the deal. Though. He gets there. He he laces pastries and cakes and wine with cyanide enough to kill like five men supposedly respute and starts chowing down, nothing happens. The daughter disputes

this and said he would not. He had bad stomach problems after his stabbing incident, and he didn't drink wine or eat sweets anymore. That's what she said, Well, that explains it. Later finding that's what she said, Um, it does explain later filling perhaps, but he hyper acidity in the stomach, and she's like, he just wouldn't have been

doing that, or possibly he was immune. That was another theory, which I think is bunk, that he had taken part of mithridoticism, which is like slowly building up your immunity to poison by ingesting small amounts of poison. I've been doing that for years, I'm sure yea oh is that why? Okay? Um? Or maybe they said have a theory that the cyanide might have vaporized when they baked the stuff in cakes.

Oh yeah, the high temperatures. But at any rate, the poison had no effect on him, and they were like, what is going on with this creep? Like he could have killed ten men with the stuff or an ox used to POV later said really so, they said, I don't know what we'll do. Let's just shoot him in the back, easy peasy, easy peasy, and uh he did so he fell down and died. That they fought. He

checked his pulse first, they went upstairs and partied. Well, they checked him out and then like he's dead, let's go part And then he came back down I think to get a coat or something and checked him again to get I think that's what the story, how the story goes really Yeah, and um, that's when resputants just like he comes alive and like attacks the guy after they shot him twice in the back, right, I think at least once two times at that point, I think

so they ended up being four total, with one in the forehead, which we'll get to his Well, Okay, so they shot him once and then they came back downstairs and he's still moving. Not only not only is he still alive, he manages to get to his feet and bust out the door and out into the yard, out into Eusten POV's yard. And that's when they shot him twice, yeah, and beat him like severely. There's pictures of his body

like he was severely beaten with a rubber club. Um, tied him in a blanket, dumped his body in the Neva River. So let's go over this again. Shot in the back. Once he gets up, goes outside. They shoot him two more times. They beat him with the club, They wrap him up in a blanket. Somebody shot him in the forehead too. There was a fourth shot. Okay, shot him in the forehead, wrap up in a blanket, drop him into a frozen river that they've carved a

hole into, and then that's that for resputin. That's that until they find him. And they found him and his arm was outstretched like he'd managed to struggle free of the blanket, right, he managed to partially free himself, indicating that maybe he wasn't even dead when they put him in the water. So they did an autopsy on him.

In the autopsy lists resputants mode of death as hypothermia, not not not being shot four times, not being beaten to death, including the forehead shot, which they all manner of like evidence says that this is was a kill shot by a professional. Yeah, but supposedly he died of hypothermia, and thens seriously they didn't, although now that you've explained it, not so mysteriously they didn't find arsenic in his system, but that until I guess recently, I think as cyanide.

Cyanide okay um was a that was a big point of lore, like he ate all this stuff, this paste, this cyanide laced pastry, and like it didn't even show up in a system. Well, it sounds like it didn't show up in a system because he didn't actually eat that stuff. And we have great cause to wonder if he was beaten. Was he Yeah, he was beaten? Okay, so he was shot four times and I guess he was dumped in the river. But what's in dispute then him? Yeah?

Who shot him? And what was the actual cause of death? Did he really free his arm or was that just something that you know that happened? Like what was the cause of death? And did they cut his penis? Well, that's a big one to supposedly, man, all these double I apologize, there's another one I haven't. I haven't met a single. Oh my god, I just needed to stop.

So supposedly they may have uh cut his penis off and it is changed hands throughout the year, maybe even belonging to a French collector who loaned it to a Russian museum to put on display for a little while. There are pictures, um, and we just don't know if that's it or not. If it is, it's ginormous good, good for resputing, so much so that um apparently by no one's actually tested it, but just looking at it, some biologists feeling like that's a horse, that's from a

horse or a cow. Yeah, or as you said earlier, it looked like a baby's arm holding an orange, And I think so we don't know if that's his penis or not. It's definitely adds another little strange sidebar to the story. It definitely does. You know. Also we should say that after he was buried in the Bolsheviks revolted. Um, they dug him up and burned his body. Oh yeah, because I don't think I knew that. We should say

the Bolsheviks did revolt. The Czar abdicated the crown in March of I think nineteen seven, and team and then the revolution happened. They were placed under house arrest, and then very famously, the entire roman Off family, their doctor, two servants in the family dog were all executed by

Bolshevik revolutionaries, including Anastasia. Yeah, and and resput and had had predicted that as along with his own demise before he died, writing if it was one of your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in the family, none of your relations, will remain alive for more than two years. That was my resputing and that's what happened. I mean, like the he was killed in uh December the end of nineteen sixteen. They were killed before the

end of nineteen eighteen, so he was right. And apparently he had also written that he didn't expect to make it to January one. He was killed two days before it. Yeah, there were disputes about the date too, but I think they settled on December. So what's up with the weirdness now? Well,

they've dug into this more recently. The two thousands Scotland Yard has a detective named Richard Cullen and a historian named Andrew Cook, and they have a theory that I think it's probably true that it was the s I S. A British secret service, actually led the plot to kill him uh and modern forensics believe they have tied the gun in the caliber of the bullet in the forehead was different than the other three, and so they have tied that back because it was not a rare gun,

but rare enough to where they tied it back to this guy, Um Oswald Brainer Oswald Rainer, who was a British officer who was there. He was there. He was also a friend of Yusupov and while he's not named in Usupav's memoirs about the murder of reciputant Us boasted about frequently. Um, he does appear suddenly in that same time, so he's in the city. And Yeah, a lot of well a retired Scotland yard detective and an historian both think that that he's the one who carried out the

kill shot. Yeah, and Rayner actually supposedly told his cousin that he was there and that he was the guy that did the deed. But Um, before he died n one, he burned all his papers and he only had one son, and he died just a few years later, so all evidence is gone except for a memo. Uh. A memo was sent between rayner superiors Um, John Scale and Stephen Ali, who weren't there at the time, and the memo says this quote. Although matters have not proceeded entirely to plan,

which you know, that's pretty true. Our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of Dark Forces, which was Resputant's code name, have been well received by all, although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends, will no

doubt brief you on your return. So it sounds pretty rock solid to me that the s I S was might have been behind it, right, so there was another conspiracy that's actually probably just a broader look at that that um it was actually the Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Lloyd George, who was ultimately behind this plot to

murder Resputin and install Uspav's gay lover the Prince. And the whole reason for either of these theories, the whole reason that Brits would want to get involved in the first place, was because they were worried that either one Resputin was going to persuade Nicholas to withdraw from the war, or he was going to continue undermining the credibility of the Romano so much that there was a revolution, and either way Russia was gonna withdraw from the war, which

is a big problem because they were keeping Germany busy on the Western Front, which meant that Germany was divided between the Western Front with Russia and the Eastern Front with the Brits. It was so if Russia pulled out, then Germany could put all of their attention on the Western Front. Yes, I get that, Quiet I got him wrong in the first time. I got him backwards, but

you corrected yourself, thank you. Yeah. So, um, maybe so maybe Britain, And you know it makes sense if it was s I s it might have gone all the way to the top the Prime minister. Yeah, it's true, you know. So it's resputing. That's everything there is to know about him, and completely factual, every word of him. Yes, Resputin. Well let's see if you want to learn more about rescput and you can type his name into the search

bart how stuff works dot com. That is capital r A S p U t I n rest Sputin sins I said resciput, And that means it's time for message break. I know it's time for listening. Mail Josh is a very special listener mail uh because the Petris Jerry. Oh they this wasn't even to us, you know, and it's just like, forget you, guys, this is for Jerry. So uh, here's it goes. I've been listening to your show from the very beginning, guys, and I have never missed an episode.

I listened to about fifteen podcasts on a regular basis, and listening to those other podcasts makes me truly appreciate the job that Jerry does on your show. While listening to other shows, I often hear pieces that were intended to be edited out, but obviously we're not. This is something that is extremely distracting to me. What usually happens is one of the host starts of sentence doesn't come out right, so they go back and start that sentence

over again. It's not done in a very natural way, and it drives me crazy, kind of like finding an obvious typo in a book. Boy, I hate that too. When this happens, it takes away from the conversation aspect of the podcast and emphasizes the fact that there's an outline for these conversations. Well, I cannot guarantee that has never happened in your show. I can't think of one time where something was obviously supposed to be edited out but was not right. Yeah, the production of your show

is so good. It feels like you did the podcast in one continuous take without any edits. That is not true. By the way, We're not that good. We don't stop and start a lot. It happens mistakes. Yeah, but we're pretty conversation. Sometimes we say things that we know we can't include. Uh, it feels like you do the podcast in one take without any edits. There is much more. This is much more entertaining because it feels more like

an organic conversation and it planned out discussion. Obviously, you guys planning your podcast with outlines and points you want to touch on. Not true. No, No, that is not true, and that goes to Jerry's powers and skills. That's right that that guy thinks that. Yeah, for those of you who don't know, I feel like we said at a gazillion times and interviews, but not everyone reads that stuff. We have our first conversation about the topic right here

in the studio. We study independently, then we come down, sit down, and we have our first conversation about it. Sometimes there are starts and stops, and Jerry takes care of that alright. Finishing up here. Um, it seems more natural in your podcast than any others that I listened to. So I just want to thank you guys for many hours of entertainment, and thank you especially to Jerry. She needs a raise, even if it comes out of your pockets. I agree that she needs a raise, not out of

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