S4 – 4: Sheep's Clothing

at his home in Pokrovsko. In fact, Alexander herself had sent a whole party of women to stay with Grigory, learned from him, and share his teaching with her. She wanted to better understand how the man lived and the weight of the things he taught, more than his few visits to the palace had allowed. With the Empress behind it, the trip gave Anna a thrill. Something told her this was a turning point and that soon, like Olga, she

would be in rest Mutant's inner circle. But the closer the trip came, the less certain she got that his inner circle was where she wanted to be. She had seen the way that Olga and his other followers treated him. They threw themselves on him in rapture. They kissed his feet with joy. Olga bundled up hairs from his beard as sacred relics. Once Olga even said that Grigory was

transformed into Jesus Christ himself, Anna wasn't so sure. When they arrived at away station between Siberia and the capital, Gregory joined the group to escort them the rest of the way. To seat everyone, they split the party into two different compartments. Three of the women made themselves comfortable and waved to Grigory as he led Anna and another woman, Yelena, to a different compartment, where he ushered them inside. So as Anna settled herself into the train car beside Grigory

and Yelena, she had a task before her. It was time to make up her mind about who this man really was. Not to mention the whispers in the group that spending time with Grigory would mean more attention from the Empress for Anna, the trip would certainly clarify things, because as it got later and the train rattled on into darkness, Anna saw that Yelena was hanging on Grigory's every word. She was in a state of religious ecstasy,

not Anna, though. In fact, she felt sleep coming on, so she looked to the bunks in the sleeper car. There were just two beds, and Anna settled herself onto the lower one. Elena and Grigory followed her lead, but they climbed into the upper bunk together. For Anna, the red flags were raised and she spoke up too. She called up that what they were doing wasn't right. Yelena should come down, she said, and share the lower bunk

with her, but Yelena refused. Despite how incredibly uncomfortable she had gotten, Anna was eventually lulled to sleep by the rocky of the train, until that is, something woke her up in the darkness, something scratchy against the skin of her face. It took her a moment to realize what it was, a man's beard. Shocked, Anna rolled off the bunk and spun around. There was Grigory rasputin on her bed. Anna was ready to defend herself. She screamed a furious question at him. If he was such a holy man,

how could he possibly justify what he was doing? He said nothing in silence. He simply crawled back up onto the top bunk where Yelena lay waiting. Anna stayed alert the rest of the night. In the morning, Yelena gave Anna a talking to. She said Resputant was only trying to commune with her spirit. It was a divine act, she said. But Anna knew a covering lie when she heard one. There was nothing holy or divine about what

Grigory had tried to do. For the rest of the trip, Anna kept her eye on him, and she paid for it too. When they got to his home in Siberia, he brought them all inside, but throughout the week he treated Anna as the butt of a joke. He mocked her and whispered about her to the other women in the group. But this meant that Anna saw what the rest of them missed. Be side I from the locals. As they went past the way, Grigory used his charm to disarm the people around him. He even tried it

against her. On the train back, he tried again to close in on her for a kiss, but she was ready. It was her fist that met him. After that, Rasputin kept his distance. Anna had his number. Though Rasputin wasn't a holy man, he was a fraud. That's what She told Alexandra she was grateful that the Empress had sponsored the trip, but Alexandra shouldn't waste any more time or attention on a man who wasn't trustworthy. If only Alexandra had listened, The other women didn't agree, though, and that

put Alexandra at ease. She ignored Anna's testimony. After all other holy men vouched for Resputin, Alexandra thought maybe Anna just wasn't able to grasp the saintly innocence of simple folk like the Siberian peasant Gregory. I can only imagine how frustrating it was for Anna. Resputant was hardly an innocent rustic. There's no doubt that Anna was rightly furious

with him and with Alexandra for ignoring her. She must have wondered if he could somehow be sidelined in favor of someone else who wouldn't use his place in Alexandra's affections to get his claws into the women around her. After all, Resputen wasn't the only one making a play for royal favorite. There were other men who might be able to jostle him out of the palace. Take, for instance, the man who would first befriend Resputant and then bedevil him. The man who came to be known as the Mad Monk.

This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankie, the Mad Monk. It was a name he embraced, he relished it, especially in later years when he was trying to sell his life story. But there was some truth to it, some violent truth. He was born Sergei Trofanov, but he would come to be known as the Monk Iliador, and he was a man who would buy for power in the royal court of the Romanovs as they slid through the shadows of

history towards their end. And if we had to credit just one person for the myths and legends that make the true history of Grigory Rasputin so difficult to nail down, that person is Iliador, first one of Resputant's most ardent friends and then his most bloodthirsty foe. Born in a Cossack fanly in southern Russia, Eliodor was the son of a deacon and set on a path into the church from his earliest days. He entered church training in nineteen oh one, just a year before he would meet the

wandering Rasputant. Like grigory. Eliodor found that he had a powerful way with words. But while Rasputin's quiet intensity gave him power in drawing rooms in prayer circles, Eliodora's booming voice was born for the public square. His gift was oratory, and soon he made the crowds who would gather to hear him into a resounding instrument. His outlook and Rasputants were aligned. What did he teach about when he made

his first impression? The divine power of the czar, the holiness of Russia, the need for the people of the empire to stand up and be counted. Here's historian Douglas Smith to tell us more. Eliodorus a fascinating and utterly bizarre character. He's one of these figures you really couldn't

make up even if you tried. He was again one of these sort of popular preachers who, unlike Resputant, does go to theological seminary and does get an actual training in theology and religion and becomes an an Orthodox priest. As a preacher, Eliador counted himself a doctor to a sick empire, but his diagnosis was about as toxic as any illness could have been, because While Eliador was a man of intense ambition, he was also an extremist and a deeply racist one. He pinned Russia's problems on his

Jewish neighbors, and he wasn't alone. The undercurrents of anti Semitism were strong in Russian culture, and he stirred them up across the Empire, growing more and more extreme as he went. Soon enough, Eliodora was blaming the changes in the Russian state on Russian Jews, and he said it was his support of the Empire that made him criticize

the Czar. When Nicholas go of autocratic rule and established the new Parliament in nineteen o five, Eliodora said the only way to stand up for the Czar was to stand up to him the Czar, Faith and fatherland where Eliodora's rallying cries, but he turned that into a recruiting tool for the violent nationalist group known as the Black Hundreds. They wanted to decide who was and wasn't Russian, and to kill or sideline anyone who didn't meet their definition.

But it didn't take long to mutate from nationalist vigilantes into right wing terrorists. Eliodora snared the racist zeal of the Black Hundreds and whipped it into a frenzy, and he began to preach merciless racist violence. He hated all the influences coming into Russia from Europe, and he believed that bloodshed was the only way to beat Russia back into submission. And they followed through. His right wing terrorists gunned down a Jewish member of the new Parliament one

evening while he was walking with his daughter. Eliodor sheltered the assassins right inside his monastery. The Eleiodor's role was noticed, but hardly punished. Yes, he was pushed out of the church academy where he taught, but easily went to another until he was fired again. That is, he bounced around until he finally landed under the supervision of a like minded priest who supported Eliodora's calls for violence. Here's Douglas

Smith again. He is the nastiest of anti semites. Um is constantly um denouncing Jews as an evil influence as the destroyers of the Russian Orthodox people. Denounces Nicholas and his government for not doing more to come down hard on the Jews and the Empire. He denounces intellectuals he had denounces socialists and liberals and the intelligentsia and what have you. And he he establishes the fairly large following in the city of sadits in Uh, quite a ways

outside the capital. But he becomes a thorn in the side of the regime because he's he's constantly denouncing it and calling for violence um and early on respute, and is drawn to Eliador and another one of these sort of right wing priests by the name of germ Again, and the three of them Krum becomes sort of a trike threesome of these um upstart preachers, if you will.

In fact, this new priest, germ Again, was such a supporter of the Black Hundreds and their violent politics that when they battled with police in the streets during the summer of nineteen o eight, germ Agin used the power of the church to shelter Eliodor from consequences. But Elodor's most powerful ally was the man with the ear of

the Empress, Grigory Rasputin. In fact, when it seemed like Eliodor might face consequences for his role in provoking violent terrorism and anti Semitic violence, gregg Or arranged a private meeting between Eliador and Alexandra. Not that it was an easy meeting. In fact, it seems like Alexandra had her own impression to make. When she sat down with a mad monk. She wasn't just going to bow to his teaching.

She commanded him to stop attacking the tsar's ministers, and what's more, he needed to reign in his wild provocations. No more preaching violence. It needed to stop. In fact, if Eliodora is to be believed, she even told them that he needed a new spiritual adviser, someone who would curb his wild teaching and bring him back onto the strait and narrow. But maybe you can see where this is going. The person Alexandra told him to follow was

none other than Rasputin himself. It's not clear exactly what she hoped would happen, whether Nicholas and Alexandra were trying to get Rasputin to bring the mad monk to heal, or whether Rasputin was trying to bring Alexandra under the influence of a violent nationalist zealot. There's one thing that's clear. In the midst of a political firestorm, the Empress had looked to Grigory Resputin for answers, and it was only

the beginning. He came and went unannounced. In fact, one day in August of nineteen o eight, Nicholas arrived home and was surprised to find Grigory talking with Alexandra. Not that this troubled the Czar. No, he sat down and joined them, and he wrote in his diary that he

talked for another half hour. But the fact that Resputin and Alexandra were meeting alone shows us just how trusted Resputin had become, and how thoroughly Alexandra had dismissed any concerns about rest Sputan's reputation and how it might make her look. After all, she was the Empress. Why should she care what other people were saying, especially when he

offered the family something they so deeply desired. One high ranking naval officer who served on the Romanov's imperial yacht would later remember that one day, when he was chatting with Alexandra, their conversation turned to spiritual city and the church. As they talked, the Empress became passionate, and the things

she said stuck with him. Alexander told him that there were people whose prayers were particularly powerful, especially people who lived lives of strict holiness, and she insisted to him that Grigory Rasputin was one of these men. After all, hadn't Alexander seen the power of his prayers when her little son was suffering so deeply? It seems she had been mulling over that experience, and that had drawn some

conclusions about the kind of man Resputant was. In looking to the Bible itself, she found the words pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayers of a righteous man are powerful. In Alexander's eyes, Gregory's power of healing and his righteousness went hand in hand. If he could heal, then he was also righteous. It was as simple as that. But it wasn't just the Romanovs

who were becoming more convinced of rest Sputant. In fact, if we only think about Resputin as a counselor for Nicholas and all Xandra during those days, we get the man wrong. Here's historian Helen Rappaport to tell us more so, the thing with Rasputin was, initially he was a wise girl to the family and a wise counselor, and that

really was a more important function. Almost someone she did for alex say, because people have this idea that Rasputin was in and out the back door and up the stairs and into the Alexander Palace every five minutes, ingratiating himself and muttering prayers over Alexey. And that's not the case.

He only came when he was invited. He didn't make that many visits to the wrong and offs at the Alexander Palace, and he often went long periods not seeing the family or communicated by telephone with them or by letter or telegram. In fact, Grigory was spending more and more time among the other wealthy and powerful Russian families. House after house, an aristocrat after aristocrat opened their doors for him. Let's have historian Douglas Smith tell us more.

He makes his way from palace to palace, going to various aristocratic salons, and these men and women within the upper echelons of Russian society are fascinated by these peasant holy men, if you will, It's like they're being put in touch with creatures from another planet. It's a world that they, being part of the westernized urban elite, have

no real contact with. They don't go to Siberia they don't go to peasant huts, and so it it allows them to enter this whole world of a Russian society from which they're cut off, but which holds great fascination for them. And here's the thing, some of what we know about resputants teaching actually sounds like good advice. When he stepped into these crowded and rowdy salons and got to know the wealthy families who were partying their way

through a period of revolution, Rasputin didn't stay silent. In fact, he often gave spiritual advice that was simple, practical and matter of fact. Yes, go to church, but after a service, go for a long walk, take a day and get as far away from the city as you can. Become aware of your smallness and let the pride and vanity of your wealth and position of power be wiped away. Find God in the world where you are, be humble, field tenderness, truly connect with the world around you, rather

than hiding behind your wealth and power and privilege. He often said that his new followers needed to give up the glorification of their own passions and instead be of service to God. If Grigory Resputant was the only person giving advice like this to the families of the princes and grand dukes, I'm sure it would have felt like a breath of fresh air. In fact, it goes a long way to describing resputants charm on when the elites in the capital, he talked to everyone informally, He ate

simple meals. He didn't have even the basic social graces that were expected in their circles, and he knew that from the beginning that his directness, his rudeness, was part of what attracted him to people, and he made sure to hold onto it, because, as we know, that attraction to Resputin was powerful. One follower of his, Nikolai Jevakov, remembered just how much the people let Restputant's prayer meetings

thirsted to hear what he would say. Even when Gregory hardly talked at all, his fanatical admirers tried to read the secret meanings behind every word and phrase They trembled in his presence, even though Jevakov himself was only a minor prince and a powerful official in the Russian Church.

This kind of reaction was new. Once, when Jevakov joined a prayer meeting with Restputant, he watched Olga trembling in a corner, screaming out he's a saint, He's a saint, until Resputin himself got annoyed and told her to be quiet. But it wasn't just these over the top celebrations of grigory that made him uncomfortable. There were other things said about him too, things he was far less able to control.

All it was inevitable, really, As Rasputin became more comfortable surrounded by luxury and truly took a place at court, he would also begin to play a role in the central drama of court life, the game of whispers. And as we know with Gregory, there was plenty to whisper about, even if the Empress had already decided that every story she didn't like was unfounded slander. In fact, the more people who got to know Resputin, the more stories they

were to tell. If Resputin had a host of followers who felt the allure of his teaching about love and connection and perhaps even bought into his way of talking about God, there were plenty of others who saw through his game. After all, they saw just how much he was enjoying his new life as a spiritual adviser to the rich and powerful. As historian Helen Rappaport says, Gregory

Resputen was what you might call an opportunist. He became very fashionable, and all these society ladies folk ground to him and their photographs of him sitting surrounded by admiring women, and they brought in gifts, and they gave him beautiful clothes, and they fed him and flattered him. And I think in that sense he was an opportunist. You know, if somebody wanted to give him money or take him out for a good dinner, he was more than happy to oblige.

So he did. He did exploit the fascination there was for him initially in Saint Petersburg, and and was wined and dined and you know, very well looked after and entertained and lived well on it for a while. They brought in curious seekers, yes, but the other stories wouldn't go away either, the stories that let everyone know how he treated the women around him. Take the conversation that arm and Jeffikov had one day had with one of

Alexandra's most senior ladies in waiting. She was the kind of person who saw everything in the palace, and of course she was usually known for her discretion, but she was troubled, and somehow one day she found herself complaining to this prince that there were some unusual comings and goings. Not only was this Grigory rasputant fellow meeting often with the Empress, but when he arrived, he was let in the back door so as to keep his visits off the official guest books. Or at least this is the

story as Jebikov would later tell it. He says the story startled him not because the Empress was talking off the record with her spiritual adviser, but most of all because her lady in waiting was telling stories about it. He warned her that even telling someone like him, a church official, was dangerous. She was talking about the private spiritual life of the Empress, and at a time when the Romanov dynasty was on shaky ground too, she had

better keep her complaints like these to herself. In the future, she risked feeding suspicion of the monarchy itself. Whatever else might be threatening the royal family, gossip was the first and the worst danger to the throne. Looking back, he couldn't have been more right, Even though Jevikov probably did not realize just how dangerous these rumors about respute and

really were. Who could blame him. Nicholas and Alexander themselves insisted that their meetings with their spiritual adviser were no one's business. They believed that they were simply between themselves, Grigory and God. But that's where they could not have been more wrong. If only the warning from Nicholas's mother had continued to echo in his mind. Remember who you are for the czar, She had told him, there is no private life. Every personal connection, every friendship, every choice

is made under the weight of imperial rule. She tried to make her son understand that famous truism of monarchy, heavy is the head that wears the crown. But somehow, despite being raised in the royal courts of Europe, neither Alexandra nor Nicholas took that warning to heart. They insisted that they be allowed the private life of a modern family. In fact, because nikol List was the czar, he commanded

it his privacy would be respected. But when has any royal ever managed to silence the whispers in their court. With the popularity of salon gatherings among the Russian aristocracy, privacy and respect were just about the least likely things I can imagine, and maids do talk. Soon enough, an attendant of one of Alexandra's closest friends was passing around the story that a mysterious peasant with a beastly appearance was slipping in and out of the royal Palace and

he was meeting privately with Alexandra. That was enough for the first wave of rumors, but the mill was hungry for more, and every reseller of a tale wants to add something a little juicy to the simple recitation. It didn't take long for the beastly visitor to become a beastly lover. And so it was in the salons of the Russian aristocrats in St. Isaac Square in St. Petersburg

that the most enduring myth of Resputant was born. Resputant was hanged, after all, she was a known revolutionary terrorist, Anna Resputant, that is, in February, she was executed in St. Petersburg. Like Grigory, she was a peasant, and she had been arrested and convicted for a failed assassination tempt on none other than Nikolasha, the Czar's violent cousin and the husband of their friends, Stana. It was no surprise to Nicholas and Alexandra that the sharp end of the revolutionary energy

was pointed at them and the other Romanovs. That the woman who tried to carry out such a plot shared a name with their friend, Gregory, was a mere coincidence to the imperial couple, of course, by now they had known Gregory for years. But for the aristocrats circling up in the capital, especially those just meeting Gregory for the first time, or worse, just hearing the rumors about him, this was no coincidence at all. And it wasn't just

the society busybodies who smelled something fishy. The execution of an arrest sputant put other more steely. I had observers on Gregory's tail, the Okrana, Russia's secret police. Despite the number of people living across Russia with that name, the coincidence was too much for the head of the Okrana to overlook, so he followed up on the matter. He started by reaching out to investigators in Siberia. He may have received reports on Gregory's predatory habits and maybe the

record of his youthful conflicts with the local magistrates. But these weren't the only inquiries the Okrana made. They also wanted something a little more current. They set some agents to tail Gregory on his rounds through the city. They didn't find what they were looking for. No links to in a no signs of connection to revolutionary terrorism. No. Gregory's ties were on the opposite side to Eliador and other violent assist monarchists who supported bloodshed in support of

the czar. But all the same, the Okrana agents found plenty to dislike. The man wasn't a terrorist, but he also wasn't a saint. Reports came back from their investigators that Grigory's life wasn't so restrained after all. His days of wandering, poverty and simplicity were left far far behind. They took note of his seductions and the way he used his teachings on love to pressure women for sex. They watched him go from aristocratic salon to salon, getting

progressively drunker and leaving damning whispers in his wake. All of that was bad enough, bad enough that the head of the Okrana felt Grigory resput and shouldn't be as he said within cannon shots of the Royal Palace. So as the head of Russia's secret police, he decided to intervene.

He sent word up the chain. The report was far from public knowledge, but in the end made it all the way to the Prime Minister stoy Leapin, the man responsible for bringing such a potentially delicate issue to the Czar. When he did, though Nicholas didn't take it well. In essence, Nicholas told stoi Leapin to mind his own business. Grigory Resputin wasn't a political issue, and he wasn't a matter for the Okrana. He was a personal connection, Nicholas said.

If the thing he didn't say was how important Grigory seemed to be protecting the health of their royal heir, Alexei, Well, Nicholas wasn't keen on the whole conversation to begin with. Stoylepin tried to tell Nicholas that this idea was naive. Everything and everyone the Tzar touched was political by nature. Every choice he made sent shock waves through the whole empire. Nicholas listened, and then he told stoy Lepin what he

wanted to hear. He would stop meeting with Grigory Resputin, Stoi Lepin left satisfied one more triumph in the service of the Russian state. After all, soy Lepin might just have been the Empire's most effective political force. The only problem was Nicholas had no intention of keeping his word.

Nothing changed. Here's Douglas Smith on what happened next. Apparently, Nicholas told Stileepen, I cannot get rid of respute and because for me, it's better to have one Resputin than you know, another hundred hysterical fits from Alexandra if I'm forced to get rid of this man, So you all will just need to find your way to deal with his presence, with the fact that he's a part of our life, because I just can't get rid of him. My wife needs him, the Empress needs him, and this

is just how it's going to be. When Stoi Leepin and the Ocrona realized that they had been played, they took a risk. Unsatisfied that this was just the way things would be, they decided to take matters into their own hands. Together, Stoy Leapin and the secret police plotted to capture Resputin and send him into exile. They weren't bold enough to kill him, but their plan was to forbid him from ever coming back to St. Petersburg. Even

that was a risk. They knew they might face the wrath of the royal couple, but they sided it was worth it. The Akrona agents swept the streets looking for Gregory, but suddenly the party hopping holy man was nowhere to be found, at least not by the police. It was almost as if he had been tipped off to the plan, and to be honest, he probably was. From what we know, it seems Grigory started to travel by side streets, dodging

familiar routes and keeping his head down. He quit staying at his home in the capitol and started lodging in the private guest rooms of his followers. So for a while he slipped the dragnet. Eventually, though, a group of agents hunting Rasputant brought him to the ground. They staked out a house where he was staying and surrounded him

for three weeks. They watched the exits. Any moment they would have him in their hands, or so they thought, But then they got word from Siberia Grigory Resputant had arrived home in Pokrovsko. Somehow his powerful friends had spirited him away. Whatever powers they possessed, The Prime Minister in the head of Russia's secret police fell short of putting Gregory in chains. Resputin had won, and the secret police had received the order to stand down, at least for now.

It turns out theo Fan was the first one to turn, or maybe the second, but it was no small matter that changed his mind. It took a brutal personal testimony from one of Grigory's closest followers to finally shake the Our command Right's good opinion and get him to see Resputin for who he really was. That testimony came to fi a Fan in the form of a letter from a woman who had been with Grigory almost from the beginning, and what she described with shocking that is, if you

haven't been paying attention. She had been living with the Resputant family in Siberia, wanting to share life with the preacher and learn his ways. She told Fia Fan she had learned all too much at home, out of the public eye and surrounded only by his family and his most devoted followers. Grigory acted as his own sort of authoritarian. He wasn't just demanding but violent. He beat his wife,

his children, and all the women in his home. He held them hostage, and when he had them alone, whether in private train cars or in the privacy of his house, he attacked them in every way he could think of. It was a testimony of terror. Via Fan used to dismiss the stories about resput And as the foibles of a man that could be overlooked. After all, who among God's flock didn't wander from the path of righteousness every now and then. But this was so much more than that.

Despite for a Fan's friendship with Grigory, and maybe because of it, the weight of all the things he heard about Grigory finally landed. The wool was pulled from his eyes. Theo Fan made a copy of the letter, he wrote a note to Nicholas, wrapped it together with the original, and sent it to the leaders of the church and to the Czar. Rasputin is a criminal in the religious and moral sense of the word, he wrote, and from

our vantage today that's perfectly clear. Historian Douglas Smith puts it plainly central to who Rasputin was is he was allege what gloss was needed. Grigory Rasputin was a predator. It's the simple truth, and with that conviction now firmly in Theophan's mind, he waited for the Emperor to do the right thing. He waited for far too long, because even though Nicholas got the letter from Theophan, the man who had served as his personal confessor, he did nothing

about it. He seemed to be confused about how theo fan could say these things. After all, he had been a friend of Rasputin and had even introduced him to their household. It didn't seem to cross Nicholas's mind that the accusations could be true. That's all the more infuriating when it becomes clear that other women were saying the same things, including some who were close to the royal family.

Take the nursemaid of their son, Alexei. She cared for the boy and would have been around when Rasputin joined the household to pray in the nursery. What exactly she told Alexandra isn't clear, but we do know she told the Empress that Grigory had attacked her, maybe more than once. Whatever it was she said, though Alexandra refused to believe it, and to add one devastating wound to another. She told the maid never to bring it up again. I can only imagine how much that hurt. It's the sort of

terrible injustice that's still all too common. Not that it went unnoticed entirely. The other household staff in charge of caring for the Romanov children started to make some noise. Soon enough, the mood around Rasputant's visits went from cordial to cold. The governess of the four Princesses, for one, wanted no part of Grigory's visits and wanted him to have no part in the girl's lives. To her, he

was a scandal waiting to happen. The safety of the girls was at risk, and so the reputation of the Romanov family was as well. And she was right that said, this seems like the right time to note one thing. There's no evidence that Grigory were attacked any of the romanovs. All the girls, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia seemed to like and trust him. The official Okrana reports said that when it came to the Romanov girls, he behaved properly and honorably.

Maybe that overstates the case, but of course, the children were never truly left alone with him. Here's Douglas Smith once again. He was allowed access to the nursery where the children were being raised. He would help put them

to bed, he would rough house with them. It's quite startling, and you really question the judgment of Nicholas and Alexandra because there are maids present, there are nursemaids present, and they see this and they're they're shocked by it, and they begin to then talk outside the palace and it's and it starts to spread. Um Again, I don't think there was ever anything untoward that happened at these moments. They were always being watched by the parents or by nurses,

what have you. But it does become the sore for gossip and rumors. We have letters that have survived that rispute and wrote to the children and they're they're, you know, they're they're very innocent and they're very you know, they don't suggest anything nefarious. So there aren't signs that Gregory hurt the children. After all. As a predator, Gregory was

an opportunist. It was his close connection to the Romanov family that made him feel powerful and that gave him the chance to bring other vulnerable people into his clutches. Targeting the Romanov sisters would have put his hunting grounds at risk, but there's no question that he was on the prowl, and he set his clause into other members of the household. But when the governess brought her concerns directly to Nicholas, he once again turned a blind eye.

He said to her, I have survived all these difficult ears only by his prayers. Her answer was that he had survived by the prayers from all of Russia, but it didn't get through to him. Nicholas told her that he didn't believe the stories that she was telling him. You're two pure of hearts, your majesty. She told him to see the filth that surrounds you, but Nicholas refused to be swayed. If he believed her, he said it would make him an enemy of his own children, and

that could never be true. Like Alexandra, he said that that was the end of it and told her to never bring it up again. And under the silence of that command, the dark future of his entire family continued to fester and grow. There's no doubt the gossip hurt Nicholas and Alexandra were frustrated that the other nobles at court wouldn't leave well enough alone. They wanted all those prime eyes to turn away, to look elsewhere, if only they had been willing to do a little prying of

their own. Despite the about face from theo Fan, despite the investigations of the secret police and the urgent warnings from the Prime Minister, they held onto their connection with Rasputin. He continued visiting them, counseling them, and behind their backs, using their relationship for his own purposes. If you think back to an earlier episode, it's a bitter irony that it was thea Fan himself who had convinced them not

to listen to the concerns. Remember, when he conducted his earlier investigation, he was too concerned with how it might make him look if Rasputin's real life didn't match up with his appearances. But by convincing the royal couple that criticisms of the Siberian peasant preacher were just jealous, slander and backbiting, he helped them shut the door on any legitimate criticism, even when it later came to himself. And of course, the legitimate criticism was also being mixed in

with even more poisonous lies. Were the courtiers whispering that Resputant and Alexandra were lovers. No one knew better than Alexandra how false that accusation was, and if that was false, the rest must be false as well. And there's one more layer going on all the way back to their French spiritualist, Mr. Philippe. Here's Douglas Smith one more time.

The more Respute and iss is criticized by powerful men within the government, within the army, within the church, the more Alexandra doubles down that she is not going to let them take resputing away from her. I think she always regretted the fact that she had allowed members of the Romano family and within the government circles to force her Nicholas to get rid of Monsieur Philippe, and she was she was determined that that was not going to

happen again. So Alexandra's arms were wrapped tightly around Grigory Rasputin and her maids, her friends, her confessor, or the backbiters at court couldn't say anything that would change that, no matter how right they were either about Rasputin or about what it would mean for the Romanovs and the power of the throne when words started to get around.

Because if Nicholas and Alexandra thought that gossip in aristocratic circles hurt, they only had to wait until early March of nineteen That's when the Oscow Gazette made sure that everyone in the Russian Empire knew the name of Gregory Rasputin. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store for next week. The spiritual touring actor Grigory Rasputin. That's what the Moscow Gazette called him, But that was

just the headline. Things only got worse for Gregory from there. Apparently the writer knew all the favorite talking points from the elite salons. He was a cunning Siberian charlatan, a predatory letcher, a hypnotist, and a false teacher who used his ideas about Holy love to get far too up close and personal with his followers. They called him a pseudo prophet and damned him for teaching spiritual delusions that

were opposite of the traditions of the Orthodox Church. But the article didn't stop at condemning resputants, delusions, and false holiness. It also attacked other areas of his life. It accused Grigory of being a lazy, deadbeat, a man who had abandoned his family in Pokrovsko, whose children were fatherless and unruly, and the author even said that in investigating his piece, he had spoken with a church leader who called Gregory

a heretic and a sexual predator. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thayne in partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty, writing by Karl Nellis, and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials and links to our other shows over at Grimm and Mile dot com, slash Unobscured, and as always, thanks for listening