S4 – 8: A Time to Live

in the car. You try to wake the man at the wheel and convince him to make the dangerous move of trading places with someone else. But even awake, he's hardly any better. He tightens his grip and refuses to let go. With bloodshot eyes, the driver screams not to touch him. Meanwhile, the car barrels forward toward destruction. It's too dangerous to fight for the wheel. It's too dangerous to do nothing. Both action and inaction seem to promise

the same carnage. What should you you? This is the question that was asked in the Moscow Gazette on September seventeenth of nineteen fifteen. The journalist who wrote the story was a member of the Duma Russia's parliament. The passengers in the car were his fellow Russians, and the mad chauffeur at the wheel was the one who claimed divine right to steer the nation forward through the perils of war, Zar Nicholas himself, and who could blame one furious statesman

for seeing things this way? Supplies, reinforcements, and hospitals for the army were planned so badly that trains filled with dying men were parked on the tracks because there was nowhere for them to unload their priceless cargo. What was Russia's experience of the war in nineteen fift It was death, grief, blood,

and failure. Steel coffins slowly turning men into corpses. Was not the legacy that Zar Nicholas imagined for the Romanov dynasty, but more and more Russians were coming to see it as his stamp on the nation's history, because it was the nation's present. And who should be to blame if not for the man in charge. And when it comes to anger at the Czar, we're not just talking about peasants.

The members of the Duma saw it, they felt it, and published their articles damning Nicholas and so did Russia's other aristocratic families. Their sons had also gone to war, their children had also been killed, and they wanted answers. What was the Tsar going to do about all this suffering? But if the calls were for him to put someone

else at the wheel, Nicholas took the opposite course. He thought that maybe the problem was that he had shirked his duty and allowed his muscle bound cousin Nikolasha to take the lead. The job had certainly not been done right, so Nicholas decided to do it himself. He had already been spending as much time as he could at Stavka,

the Russian military headquarters. The camp where battle plans were laid, was established off the Moscow Warsaw Road, nestled between the trunks of pine and birch trees and surrounded by ring after ring of centuries. Nicholas found all of that invigorating to him. It was a masculine place, a place for a rugged, disciplined life, a place where every second counted

and every man was about his work. The urgency in order reminded him of his fondest memories his younger years in the cavalry, before he had taken up the responsibilities of the czar, but in the summer of nineteen fifteen, it was the responsibilities that he shouldered. The Czar's place was with his troops. Nicholas believed it so strongly that it was almost mystical. He even made up his mind in the church. It was while he was standing in the cathedral, with his eyes fixated on an image of Jesus,

that he felt a voice speak in his mind. Maybe the reason his man had lost the war with Japan ten years before was that he had stayed in the palaces and left the work to others. He didn't want to make the same mistake twice in a time of war. It wasn't right for the Tsar to hide in palaces and float offshore in yachts. It was time for him to take action. It was time for him to bear the weight of the empire on his own shoulders. So, no matter what anyone else was shouting to the heavens,

Nicolas tightened his grip on the wheel. Nikolasha was out and the Tzar was in. The move was dramatically, universally unpopular. Even the rest of the Romanov family tried to argue with Nicholas to make him reverse his decision and leave the war to others. But finally Nicholas had found a spine.

When his ministers approached him at the end of August begging him to reconsider, Nicholas sat and listened, sweating profusely and clutching an icon to support his spiritual conviction that he was meant to lead, an icon he had received from his spiritual adviser and friend, Grigory Rasputin. His conviction was unshaken, and in the coming days it would become clear that the Czar wasn't the only one seizing his

royal prerogative. As the wheels of war continue to turn, there was someone else who didn't fear putting their hands on the controls. The Empress herself, Alexandra, this is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. Felix Yusupov was an aristocrat, and a wealthy one too. His family was among Russia's richest, and while they weren't the most powerful, they were like many other oligarchs. They had their fingers in every pie, and Felix had his finger on the pulse too. When Nicholas

took over the command of Russia's armies. Felix wrote down just how worried his elite friends had become. The news on the whole was badly received. He wrote, everyone knew that pressure had been brought to bear on the Tsar by Rasputin. In fact, Felix wrote that the Tsar was only going to the front because Rasputin told him to. Nicholas had caved because the Holy Man had played on the religious feelings that Nicholas had about his god given

role as the ruler of his people. But if this was some kind of spiritual con game, why was Rasputin doing it? Felix thought he knew. He wrote that it was in Rasputin's interest to remove the Tsar as far from Petrograd as possible, because he said, when Rasputin had pushed the Czar out of the palace, that left Alexandra in his power. That was what Felix Usupov and the other wealthy Russians believe and what they feared. Of course,

the reality, though, was far more complicated. First of all, there was the fact that Alexandra and Rasputin too, We're actually against Nicolas spending time in Stovka. Maybe no one else saw it at the time, but it was clear in the Empress's writings over and over. In her letters in the early months of that year, Alexandra was urging Nicholas to come back home. She wanted her husband to stay in the capital with her, and she told him

that Resputant thought the same. In fact, the reason Alexandra was worried was the same reason that the Duma and the aristocrats like Felix Yusupov worried about Rasputin. It was all about how Nicholas would be influenced. In June of nineteen fifteen, during one of the Tsar's many visits to Stavka,

Alexandra wrote to Nicholas a letter showing her hand. She and Rasputin were worried, she said, because when Nicholas was far from the palace and far from her, there were people who could make him do things that he shouldn't do. When he was at Strafka, there were untold numbers of advisers and generals and liars to push the czar around. It would be healthier, Alexandra wrote, if Nicholas would take

care of things quickly and just come home. When Nicholas made the opposite choice a few months later and took command. He made his place at Stavka all the more prominent. Alexandra's letters only became more urgent and came more often. If the Czar wasn't going to be at her side. Alexandra was determined that she would still have his ear.

Here's historian Helen Rappaport to tell us more. The wartime correspondence is predominantly her long haranguing letters to Nicholas, telling him to do this, that and the other, and complaining about the girls being hormonal and argumentative, and um, you know, telling him to sack this minister and higher that minister. The war yor letters are very revealing of her controlling

influence over him. But if Alexandra had a controlling influence over Nicholas, it's just as likely that Nicholas had his own influence over Alexandra. When they were together, Nicholas could bear the duties of state, the two could talk, and Alexandra was free to rest and retreat while Nicholas kept up an endless series of meetings with ministers and bureaucrats. But now with the Czar far away, pressing matters still

had to be dealt with. And if it was the duty of the emperor to get his hands dirty, how much different could it be for the empress. Alexandra felt that she had to act as well, and act she did. To begin with, Alexandra didn't miss how much care was needed for the wounded men. She immediately threw herself, despite a lot of physical problems by then the scietic who

was awful, she threw herself into war work. She organized hospital trains, She organized ladies at the court to to to set up collecting dressings and you know, bringing to bringing together sewing garments so the wounded. She set up various hospitals in St. Pete but Wells and Petrograd in the war, in the capital city and out at saskos At. Alexandra did far more during the war than people are aware of, many because it's not really being written about.

But if it's true that Alexandra's work in the hospitals was overlooked, there was another side of her life that drew far too many eyes because she wasn't just organizing medical care. Alexandra was taking the reins of the states herself. It started at the very top, while Nicholas was away at the front, Alexandra met with the Prime Minister almost every day. It helped that he was on Alexandra's side,

the side of absolute monarchy. In fact, when Nicholas left for the front, the Prime Minister even suggested that the Duma should be dissolved. What Russia needed, he believed, was to be united behind the Romanovs. Alexandra could only agree, and when things on the front lines of the war

went south, it only strengthened her resolve. When members of the Duma gathered together to meet with the Prime Minister and begged him to send more supplies and more ammunition to the army, Alexandra wrote to Nicholas, these elected representatives were meddling with things above their pay grade. The war was none of their business, she said. They were merely fostering discontent. To her, it didn't matter that they had been the legislature of the empire. That's not what God wanted.

No God wanted an autocrat to rule. If the Prime Minister listened to other voices, Alexandra was sure that it would only bring the Empire more trouble. So she beat back political advisors and advice from the disbanded Duma more and more she took matters into her own hands. Where supplies needed at the front were more nurses needed at home, Alexandra would decide it for herself, and she revealed to Nicholas just how much she wanted that power and just

how little she could see what was coming. When she wrote, Russia, thank God, is not a constitutional country. It shouldn't be a surprise that Rasputant sent his own letter to Stavka. He said that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him in a vision. She told him to travel from the capital and visit the military headquarters. There he could help plan the fight. He had ideas about the war, He had ideas about the economy. God would speak through him and deliver Russia from the tide of violence. He got

a letter back from the Tsar's cousin. The man wrote Respute in a similar note. He said that Mary had appeared to him as well. She told him that if Grigory Rasputin ever came to Stavka, Nikolasha would hang him from the nearest lamp post. It was in the months before Nicholas would relieve him of command. Needless to say, Resputant stay at home by Alexandra's side, and it was

a sign of how much things had changed. In the beginning, it was Nikolasha and the sisters Stana and Melitza who had introduced Respute into the Tsar's but by now the tzar's cousin saw a real dark side to Gregory's influence over the imperial couple. For years, even decades, they had been friends, Nikolasha, Stana, Melitsa. They were the ones who had helped her the most when she was a rush

young empress first stepping into her new home. But these were not those years, and as Nikolasha made it clear just how much contempt he had for Grigory Resputin, a man the Empress trusted most, she started to suspect that even her closest companions were plotting against her family. With Nikolasha now threatening Resputant's life outright, Alexandra feared betrayal. Maybe he was even scheming to take the throne. She had all the evidence necessary to have one of those bulletin

boards with photos and pins and red string. It seemed that in the months before Nicholas took control of the army, Nikolasha had been meeting with the government ministers without the Czar. In fact, Alexander learned that the ministers had been taking reports to Nikolasha and not to her husband, even when the matters didn't concern the fighting on the front lines.

It might not seem so strange to us now looking back on how important Nikolasha was as the man directing the war efforts, but to Alexandra it was a sign that Nikolasha was making in a play to sideline Nicholas. As much as she hated to have her husband leave her side and go to the front, she was convinced that Nikolasha needed to be crushed. I have absolutely no faith in Nikolasha, she wrote to the Czar. Having gone against a man of God, his work can't be blessed.

It didn't help that Nikolasha was in fact deeply loyal to Nicholas and to Russia. He was against Rasputin, and it was no secret that he wasn't the only one. So if Nikolasha had to go, what about the others. Here's more from Helen Rappaport. Nicholas was a long way way at Army h Q, and she was always very opinionated about what kind of ministers Nicholas should appoint. Generally, a lot of toadies and yesmen were appointed during Nicholas's reign,

who were often incompetent and weak and ineffectual. But Alexandra was the one who wanted to have a retinue of yes men who did as she felt, you know, things should be done. And she constantly harangued Nicholas, pressing him into sucking this minister. I don't like that, minister. You know, you should get rid of so and so. And it was normally because they wouldn't the line, the line they wouldn't tow was the one set by Alexandra, of course.

And when it came to qualifications, Alexandra had at least one easy test. What did they think of Rasputin? Were they on the side of Nikolasha and so many others an enemy of the friend God put by their side, then they couldn't possibly be suitable candidates to govern the empire. No one's job was safe, not even the men who Grigory and Alexandra selected to lead the Russian government. One wrong move and they went from inside track to out

in the cold. Here's Douglas Smith to tell us more this phenomenon that becomes known as ministerial leap frog, where basically, like one prime minister is being sacked, a new one hired every other month. There's a there's a new head of the police, there's changes at the upper echelons of the military and other um posts in the government, Minister

of Interior and what have you. By those latter years, Risputant is exercising more influence on ministerial appointments, has more opinion about these things, and Alexandra listens to him and tries to lean on Nicholas to make some of these changes. Bizarre was still the one with the final word, but more and more Nicholas made appointments and fired officials from a distance on Alexandra's advice, and the whole time she was looking out for her friend, Rasputants enemies are like

spiders around us. Alexandra wrote to Nicholas, Russia will not be blessed if we let a man of God be persecuted. She demanded that intrigues against their spiritual advisor be forbidden. She didn't even want government officials talking about him. Anyone who disobeyed should be pushed out of power. To Alexandra, with the war needed was government officials who would support the guidance that the Czar was receiving from God and from Gregory. And what better way to find the right

help than to consult Resputin himself. After all, Alexander had spent her years as empress avoiding the mess of elite Russian life. Retreats after retreat to yachts, hunting, lodges, and her bed had left her with very little clue of where to turn when she actually needed help. She couldn't even rely on Stanta and Melitza, so who was left well just one man. Suddenly, the thing that resputants critics

had feared for so long was coming true. For years, the rumors that Resputant was pulling the strings had been merely that, just rumors. His advice had been mostly encouragement for a troubled royal family. But now a new opportunity was presenting itself. With Nicholas away and Alexandra taking control, Grigory could finally become a real force behind the throne. And Grigory had his own reasons for wanting to grip

the wheel. After all, the scar that still crossed his stomach was a testament to just how much his enemies wanted him dead. Here's Douglas Smith to remind us what's important to remember is that part of the reason Resputant is doing this is he is very much fearful for his life. There have been several attempted assassinations of resputing and he is terrified that the people in charged with keeping him safe are in fact the ones that want

him dead. And so he is very much leaning on Alexandra to make sure that the people they hired to be, for example, the head of the police or the Ministry of the Interior, are in fact allies of his and not enemies just waiting to do him in. As we've seen, if Grigory was driven by his personal paranoia, so was Alexandra. They were relying on each other to see their way through the empire's dark days. Gregory relied on his empress,

Alexandra relied on Gregory's insight from God. But there was little insight to be found, and in the coming days, as more power came into their hands, they would come to see clearly that Grigory Rasputin was right about one thing. At least, he had enemies on every side, and they were coming for his life, someone you can do business with. That's what they called grigory. It was obvious to everyone how things at the top were starting to change. Restputants

critics were being thrown from the moving car. But if you were a political schemer and you wanted to get in, well, now there was an empty seat just waiting for you. The czar may have always been out of reach, but what about the elevated Siberian peasant with a penchant for drink, expensive clothes and nights out on the town. If other officials and ministers had tried to save Russia by tearing Rasputant down, a very different approach was now on offer. Flattery, gifts,

and gossip. They were the stock in trade for many who had always been held on the outside. Now the wheelers and dealers around Petrograd saw doors opening for them as well. The opportunist with the Czarina's ear, well, that looked like an opportunity. But for men like the ones who stepped into the picture, Resputant was only valuable when he was still their route to the palace. Once they

found themselves in the government's inner circle. Though, grigory respute and went from being an opportunity to a liability because anyone who wanted to use resputant to get to Alexandra soon found they would have to dispose of him if they wanted to get their own way. So the next time a call came threatening Grigory's life, it came from inside the house that he built. Here's Douglas Smith to

give us the fascinating details. There are several plots and assassinations that were in the gainst for spute in his lifetime, and one of the more bizarre was put together by the so called troy Ka the Threesome, the head of which was the Minister of Interior, man named Stoff, who in fact got the job as minister claiming to be a defender of respute and an ally of Resputing the fact that he was even chosen at all, though, shows just how naive Gregory and Alexandra were, because while it

was true that their new Minister of Interior was a well known and well connected man, the thing he was mostly known for was corruption. Yes, he had been a member of Eliador's right wing terrorist group, but he had also been a provincial governor. He had been elected to the Duma, but he didn't make friends there. The others called him a hooligan, a criminal, and a scoundrel. His patriotism was flamboyant and his hatred for Germans was real, but anyone who actually knew him could see that he

was really just out for himself. When he was first appointed, Grigory was overjoyed resput and thought that finally he had a man in the government who would attend directly to him. After all, the new minister had made every promise that Gregory and Alexandra wanted to hear. He would crack down the press, he would help get Rasputants allies into other high positions. He would even supply Gregory with a regular

allowance of money from the government coffers. When Gregory returned to Petrograd from a trip to Siberia in the fall of nineteen fifteen, he was buzzing with excitements. Things were finally going his way, but it was all too good to be true. Once he was appointed to serve in the Tsar's government as an ally to Rasputin, the new minister's true colors were on display. He very quickly then shifts to the other side, to the competing camp, and starts trying to dream up ways to to do in Resputin.

He he plots to have him put on a train and sent off outside the capital, and then someone was going to come and pick him up and throw him off a speeding train. Um. There's attempts to put together

a bottle of poison wine that he will drink and die. Um. And then together with a couple of others, he comes up with trying to lure Iliador, who by this time has fled Russia for Norway, to pay iliad Or sixty thousand rubles if iliad Or could get some of his allies who are still in Russia to shoot and kill Resputing. Now this plotting gets very complex. It's like a bizarre sort of crime story, but it all comes to light

before it can happen. The moves that Nicholas was making at Alexandra and Rasputin's advice, of course, were turning his administration into a kind of wild West, the kind of place where, even once he was caught to the new minister thought he could simply talk his way out of consequences. Plus Stoff claims that no, no, no, I was never trying to kill Resputin. I was trying to out a plot to kill Resputin, but in the end of the

whole thing blows up in his face. But it offers further proof to Alexander and Resputing that even the people that they hire in place and positions of power to keep resputing if are in fact snakes in the grass who won him killed. It was yet one more chance for the Romanovs to realize they were off track. But they had never been a royal couple to admit mistakes.

With every misstep that risked their lives and that risked the empire, they only became more convinced the only people they could trust were themselves and the Siberian mystic, of course, and like Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin was undaunted. Rather than seeing just how bad he was at organizing an imperial government,

Rasputin was actually emboldened. With every new minister appointed, he felt more and more powerful, He felt more and more in charge, and that feeling gratified him more than anything he had felt in a very long time. As nineteen sixteen began, Grigory Rasputin was back in Petrograd and he had come to flex his muscles. Let's remember that Alexandra was German. No one had really forgotten that either, but they were beginning to remember it in a new and

all too significant way. After all, Russian soldiers were marching by the millions to fight Germans, and the German soldiers of the Austro Hungarian Empire were sending back those Russian boys in body bags. In an empire racked by fear, conspiracy, and the lust for blood, the dots were all too easy to connect, and all the more so with the next move they made to set up a government they

could keep on a tight leash. Because the man that Alexandra recommended to Nicholas as the next prime minister was named Boris Sturmer. If that sounds like a German name to you, you're not alone. It seems like most of the Russian Empire felt the same too, even Nicholas for the czar. Of course, it could just have been that Boris wasn't the brightest bulb in the lamp, so to speak.

He was also, like other misfires, a bit showy in society and a bit slow on anything that really mattered, a bureaucrat who was too old and too dull for even the other bureaucrats around the czar. They asked him to choose someone else, but none of the misgivings would compare to the letter Nicholas gott from Alexandra. I hope you will appoint him, she wrote, he has suited best of all for the present time. When Rasputin's own letter followed,

Nicholas allowed himself to be swayed. In January of nineteen sixteen, Boris Sturmer became the new Prime Minister of the Russian Empire. On his very first day at the new post, he made the journey to Grigory's rooms. Boris pledged his loyalty. Rasputin gave his blessing. But if that set nerves at ease in the palace, it set off alarms throughout the

rest of the Empire. Fears and conspiracies swelled into the streets like an overflowing sewer, And among the worst of it was the way that anti German fears were staining everything. In past generations, German and Slavic neighbors had settled down under the same imperial roof. There had been some growing sense of ethnic strife over the last few decades, sure, but for a long time Russian anger and fear had been turned not against the Germans but against the Ottoman Empire.

But when the dogs of war were finally loosed against Russia's European neighbors, there was a united effort to turn all of that fury against new targets. Here's Dr Joshua Sanborn to explain. The difficulty is that Nicholas himself, um, starting in nineteen fourteen become begins to play a much larger role in developing ethno politics, to encouraging the idea that you should mobilize around your ethnicity and so um. He tries to do some of that in the midst

of the war as well. So and this is this is the toxic combination that explodes over the course of the war. And the thing was the shrapnel from that explosion was going to lodge in the Czar's own house. It was almost like he forgot where his wife had come from, but no one else did. And if the earliest parts of the war had allowed them to overlook that fact, things were piling up that brought it back to center stage. The recent failures on the battlefield, for example,

could they be more incompetent? What about Alexandra's new energy for controlling the government, and the appointment of men like Boris Sturmer across the Empire, and especially in the offices of the disbanded Duma. People were beginning to ask, were the failures of the Russian government stupidity or treason? And maybe Alexandra was secretly more wedded to the land of her birth than to her new homeland. Those fears were unfounded, of course, but a lack of evidence had never stopped

people from speculating wildly about Alexandra. That had been the stuff of popular conversations for years. In fact, it was that long runway of salacious gossip about what was happening in the palace that let the most recent, most vicious rumors take flight. The Czarina's most fervent critics were now wondering if every scandal going all the way back to monsenor Philippe and the missteps that Alexandra had made from the very beginning of her reign, we're all just one

long game to undermine the romanof dynasty. But if there was a German plot to sabotage Russia, they would certainly have to look much further back than the day Alexandra and Nicholas first felt a spark at the family wedding. Here's Dr Joshua Sanborn to explain much of the Romanov family was was German. Virtually all of the stars over the course the nineteenth century had chosen brides from the

German principalities and then from Germany itself. So many of them had German mothers, and this has been going back for again for generations, and this was starting to become a problem for them. Right Alexander would would eventually be sort of be criticized for being pro German because she had this German background to her critics. It was bad enough when the Empress was shuffling the deck of government agencies,

the army and the police. But things really came to a head in nineteen sixteen when something even closer to Russian hearts came under Restputant's hand, the leadership of the Russian Church. Here's more from Douglas Smith. Spudents almost starts looking around for allies defenders and wants to have them.

It in positions of power within the Russian Orthodox Church too, if you will guard him from his enemies, and one of those is Varnava, who was also born a peasant like him, had no real education, but was a powerful preacher, and then sort of makes his way slowly up the church and Resputant decides that he wants Varnava to be appointed bishop, but the bishops are strongly against it because they don't think he's worthy of the title in the position.

But the one who can ultimately push this through is the Emperor, and resput and you know, in vegles his way in with Alexandra Nicholas and gets Nicholas against the wishes of the body known as the Holy Synod, which is a sort of the ruling body of the church, to go ahead and make Varnava a bishop, which he later becomes. And again this this introduces this great rift and distrust between the official church and nick list, which

further undermines Nicholas and his power and authority. Amidst the turmoil of war, that choice erupted into its own scandal when the czar's handpicked bishop began feuding with the other leaders in the church. Because in that squabbling, the bishop visited Alexandra, he knew where to go when he needed a personal favor. He asked her to lean on the Tsar and replace the chief procurator of the church. So

she did. But like the other let's call them personal choices that Alexander was making, this one was a real blunder. The man Alexandra chose was another government bureaucrats with no experience in the church. And then when she then started reassigning the bishops from city to city to bring allies of Rasputant to the post in Petrograd, the outrage was

too much for pious Russians to take. Nicholas was the one who finally demanded the transfers, but the blame was placed squarely on Alexandra and Rasputin to the faithful priests and monks of the Russian Church. This shredded the fabric of Orthodox Christian faith. Yes, Nicholas was believed to be the divine autocrats, but by allowing a man like Rasputant to influence his decisions, he was now showing himself to be unworthy of that office. Somehow a serpent had slithered

in and taken the crown. The wealthy elites across Russia were equally aflame with anger. Princess Zinaida Yusupov wrote to her son Felix that she was shocked by what was happening in the Czar's palace. She wished that she could leave Russia and never return. Gregory is back yet again, she wrote, and I disdain everyone who tolerates this and remains silent. She spoke for a growing number of the aristocrats who saw the empire crumbling around them. They started

to call their governments the reign of Rasputin. It was Grigory's world and they were all just living in it. The pressure was growing for someone in their circles to do something. The fact that Boris Sturmer was pushed out of his office after only a few months did almost

nothing to quell their fears. Putting out the spark that started the wildfires didn't save the forest, and in the flickering light of those flames, every little thing that Resputant and Alexandra had done over the past decade was being seen in a new light of suspicion. The very fact that Rasputin had counseled the Czar against war came back to bite him. He had begged Nicholas not to send Russian men like his son to the battle front. Now so many of those boys were dead, caught up in

their search for a German conspiracy. The Russian public saw those doubting messages as a sign that Rasputin wasn't committed to the fight. His council had undermined the army. They thought, maybe it was even the reason that all those battles had been lost. His whispers in Alexandra's ear had led to the government being thrown topsy turvy. And now this wandering mystic who wasn't even a priest or a monk, believed that he was the man to decide who should

lead God's holy Church in the heart of Russia. I hope you can see how easy it was to question all of this. Could it be that there was a secret plot laid by German agents to strangle the life out of Russia using a Siberian hand two aristocrats like Felix Yusupov Grigory was the spider at the center of a slowly constructed web, and the Czar was simply too blind to see that the Siberian peasant wasn't there to save Russia, he was there to tear it all down.

His daily life was quite simple. In the morning, he would find himself in church, then It was breakfast, nothing elaborate, just something simple and nourishing. His home was five modest rooms. His furniture was sparse, a table and a few chairs, a cheap writing desk. Yes, he had a staff, people to cook and clean and care for his two daughters, Maria and Varvara. Sometimes his niece came to live with

him in Petrograd too. It seems that even in nineteen sixteen, at the height of his power, there was still something in Grigory Resputant that wanted to do things the right way, to live simply to holy man. That would have surprised the people who knew about his business. It would have surprised the people paying him huge bribes to push forward

their agenda behind the scenes. It would get a laugh from the people who saw him out on the town night after night, drinking Madeira wine and dancing with chorus girls. But the truth is often complicated, and Grigory Resputant remained a man with two faces. At home, Maria knew her father as the gentle and loving man who ate dry pretzels with his tea, the man who met with hundreds of followers every single day, despite his fears of being killed the man who took his huge bribes. Yes, but

then gave them to the poor. That's one thing to be said for him. At least, if one of the people standing down his block came looking for money, they were actually going to get it. And what about the Empress. Yes, each month she paid his rent one and twenty one roubles, and yes she would hear his grand proclamations about how the government should be run, but much to her annoyance, even during the war years, he would come to the palace with his pockets stuffed with notes and request for

the Czar. He felt duty bound to be an advocate for the Russian people, even peasants just like him. But it all feels less charming when we remember that many of the people who came to speak with him were women, and if they came on the wrong day. Grigory's attentions came with a heavy cost. He never stopped using his position and his power to force favors from vulnerable followers.

There were men among his petitioners too. Of course, the secret police jotted down the many times that men tried to visit him in secret, ashamed of asking him for help with their careers. With securing promotions or with arranging shady business deals. Once he even had the governor general of the city of Petrograd groveling at his feet. By the later months of nineteen sixteen, Resputant's apartment almost seemed like its own kind of government agency. His power was

no longer a matter of perception. He toppled his enemies, and the divine autocrat looked to him to speak the words of God. All of this for a Siberian peasant who never had an official government post. Yes, he became a creature of Petrograd. No matter how many nights he spent collecting gifts of wine and wealth from the Russian elites, he always seemed to hold on to his past, the light and the darkness too. In later years, Rasputin's daughter would write that Grigory wasn't just trying to use the

Czar and Czarina as pawns. No, his belief in their god given place ruling the empire that was real, and over time he did come to love Nicholas and Alexandra. He loved serving them and their children. But he also loved the power that he got from that bond, and he had his own views too, of who the Romanovs really were. He believed that Nicholas was good, but painfully naive.

He was a czar too far removed from the people, too wrapped in a bubble of protection, that made the Russian Empire hate and fear their ruler rather than love him. And once, it seems he even said so to Nicholas's face. And maybe in just this one instance, the czar saw things more clearly than the mystic. Nicholas told Rasputin that if he and Alexandra were to live out in the open, the people would kill him, just as they had his grandfather.

Overcome by his devotion to the divine emperor, raspute and denied it. He said, the people would never kill their zar. If it would be anyone, Rasputin believed it would be the elites and intellectuals who would finally eat the Romanovs alive. But if Grigory was talking about the czar when he said those words, he got it slightly wrong. The elites of Petrograd didn't have their knives out pointed at Nicholas. Now. They were appointed at the peasant standing behind the throne.

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. She came in with the others. It was a typical day for Resputant. Petitioners were lined up outside his door. They filed in with requests for prayer, for favors, for help with something in their lives that was out of reach. Maybe they wanted healing for themselves or for a wounded son who had come back from

the front, and she came in with them. In fact, there's no sign that Resputant thought she was any different from the rest, That is until she stepped up to Grigory. Something in her hand caught the light, and he asked her to show it to him. As she approached. Out from under her coat, she drew a revolver with a ferocious light in her eyes. She raised it between them and wavered. After a moment, she broke down. The point of a gun fell to the floor, and she offered

it to Resputant. She had come to kill him, she said, and the secret police who were guarding Resputant hadn't seen that she was carrying a weapon to her meeting with him. She could have taken his life then and there. But instead she put the gun in his hands, and as she did, she told him it was when she saw his eyes that she realized her mistake. She simply couldn't

go through with it. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis, and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials and links to our other shows over at grim and Mild dot com, slash Unobscured, and as always, thanks for listening the boo