Latest / Ridiculous History / The Rasputin Episode, Part Two: A Death and Mysterious Rumors

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The Rasputin Episode, Part Two: A Death and Mysterious Rumors · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the number
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  Speaker 1: one nemesis of Ohio, our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: I just got to say, I mean, we've recently had
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  Speaker 2: a lot of good claps, but that was not just
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  Speaker 2: like a perfectly timed one. But the amount of enthusiasm
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  Speaker 2: that we all had in our clap was so impressive.
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  Speaker 2: It was a loud one.
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  Speaker 3: Have we talked about what the clap is to the
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  Speaker 3: folks at home? I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, nine years in, I think we can break
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  Speaker 4: the fourth wall some.
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  Speaker 3: I suppose. It's a thing we do that we don't
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  Speaker 3: really need to do, but we do it out of
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  Speaker 3: a sense of duty and history and in tradition where
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  Speaker 3: we clap all at the same time as Max counts down.
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  Speaker 3: Sort of like in Wayne's World where they go three, two, one.
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  Speaker 3: And then they point.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, wait. I was programmed.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were all programmed. It's like an old school
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  Speaker 3: way of syncing up our audio because we're actually not
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  Speaker 3: in the same place.
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  Speaker 1: What? Hey, folks, before you listen to this episode, we've
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  Speaker 1: got a little bit of housekeeping. First off, that is
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  Speaker 1: the legendary Mr. Noel Brown coming live and direct from Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is Ben Bullen for tax purposes. And this is
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  Speaker 1: episode two of our anniversary show regarding a guy named Greg.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, that'd be a better name for the biography or
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  Speaker 3: the book regarding Greg.
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  Speaker 1: You're still so mad about that story. About that story.
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  Speaker 1: So in a previous life. Yeah. In a previous episode, Noel,
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  Speaker 1: you got you got rightly irritated by an historian's book
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  Speaker 1: about Grigori Rasputin that was just titled. What was it?
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  Speaker 1: Rasputin colon a life. A life. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: A life of what?
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  Speaker 1: Right. So our last thing at the top here, thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much for joining us, folks. We are getting
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  Speaker 1: into deep water. So some of the stuff we are
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  Speaker 1: exploring today may not be appropriate for all audiences. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Episode one was the appropriate one. Yeah. And we still
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  Speaker 3: talked about blood sugar sex magic.
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  Speaker 1: We did. We are joining the story right in the
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  Speaker 1: moment where our pal Greg has ascended. Yeah, he's ascended.
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  Speaker 1: He's used his Machiavellian wiles to make increasingly important social
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  Speaker 1: connections in St. Petersburg, leading up to him meeting the
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  Speaker 1: royal family.
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  Speaker 3: And here's what we do know for sure in a
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  Speaker 3: story full of a lot of things that we don't
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  Speaker 3: know for sure. Rasputin got super tight with two aristocrats
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  Speaker 3: from Montenegro, these so-called black princesses, Melitza and Anastasia from
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  Speaker 3: the movie.
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  Speaker 1: Which we're big fans of and inspired an episode in
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  Speaker 1: the future. These two princesses, had married cousins of Tsar
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  Speaker 1: Nicholas II. And so they had the access to vouch
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  Speaker 1: for Rasputin. And they said, look, he's really a mystic dude.
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  Speaker 1: He's a legit spiritual leader. He has crazy cool powers.
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  Speaker 1: You run Russia. You got to meet this guy.
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  Speaker 3: Dude, you know who does the voice of Rasputin in Anastasia?
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  Speaker 1: I knew you were looking this up.
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  Speaker 3: I was looking up a couple of things. I'll get
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  Speaker 3: to the second one in a minute. But it was
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  Speaker 3: Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd.
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  Speaker 1: That makes so much sense.
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  Speaker 3: I can picture it. I can't picture it, actually. I
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  Speaker 3: can't picture the voice, but I bet you he does
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  Speaker 3: a hard Russian accent. But, dude, Anastasia was from the
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  Speaker 3: Don Bluth of the Bluth Company, of The Secret of
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  Speaker 3: NIMH and Five Olts. Goes West and An American Tale
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  Speaker 3: and The Land Before Time. All the bummer ones from
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  Speaker 3: the late 80s and early 90s.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the deep cuts that really stay with you. All
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  Speaker 1: of those go to heaven.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, carry on.
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  Speaker 1: That's perfect.
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  Speaker 4: Wait, wait, The Land Before Time was a bummer one?
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  Speaker 3: Are you joking?
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  Speaker 1: Of course it was a bummer.
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  Speaker 3: It's sadder than Bambi when Littlefoot's mother dies. That's the
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  Speaker 3: inciting event. That's the inciting event of the whole adventure.
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  Speaker 4: I impressed that part of the movie.
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  Speaker 3: That's the whole reason that he goes a-wandering and meets
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  Speaker 3: a ragtag gang of anthropomorphic dinos.
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  Speaker 4: I'm going to go cry.
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  Speaker 1: It's okay to have feelings. I have about three a year.
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  Speaker 3: Watch The Land Before Time, and you might be able
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  Speaker 3: to crank that up to four.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks, man. Hope springs eternal, and that is exactly where
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  Speaker 1: our buddy Nick II is coming from, because despite ruling
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  Speaker 1: one of the most important empires on the planet— Stuff
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  Speaker 1: is not going well at the czar's household. He has
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of kids. He's got four daughters. He's got
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  Speaker 1: one son, a kid named, well, we'll call him Alexei.
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  Speaker 1: For tax purposes.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. And pronunciation.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. For tax and pronunciation purposes. This poor kid, through
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  Speaker 1: no fault of his own, suffers from hemophilia.
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  Speaker 3: Which was a kind of a common princely ailment that
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  Speaker 3: often stemmed from inbreeding. Inbreeding.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: It's the one where your blood's real thin and you
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  Speaker 3: bleed out real easily if you get a little boo-boo.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, your blood doesn't clot as well. So at the time,
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  Speaker 1: there is not much in the way of legitimate medical
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  Speaker 1: treatment for hemophilia. And the czar is worried on two fronts. First,
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  Speaker 1: he's trying to be a good dad. He wants his
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  Speaker 1: son to, you know, not die.
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  Speaker 3: Not die, right. But then there's also the whole line
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  Speaker 3: of succession to consider.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's our second thing. He's the ruler of Russia
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  Speaker 1: and he doesn't want to endanger his family's grip on
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  Speaker 1: the throne. So he and his wife, Alexandra, are growing
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  Speaker 1: increasingly desperate. It is no surprise then that when his
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  Speaker 1: Montenegrin cousins come up to him and tell him these things,
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  Speaker 1: wild tales of a strange man from Siberia that he
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  Speaker 1: kind of considers it as an option.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'll try anything at this point, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. That's what he was saying. That's exactly what
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  Speaker 1: he was saying, yeah. And so it comes to pass
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  Speaker 1: that on November 1st of that year, Greg meets up
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  Speaker 1: with Nick. Rasputin meets up with the Tsar at the
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  Speaker 1: Peterhof Palace. We know the exact date was November 1st,
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  Speaker 1: Because old Nick writes about it in his diary, which
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  Speaker 1: he had. Yes, he did.
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  Speaker 3: And he kept up with the regularity.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, just so. And he says, he and his.
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  Speaker 3: Dear diary. He says, I met a strange man today. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He notes that he and his empress, Alexandra Feodorovna, made
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  Speaker 1: the acquaintance of a man from God. Okay. Grigori from
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  Speaker 1: Dobloch province.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. A man for, wow. We met him. We met
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  Speaker 3: a man from God today. Uh, we're not a hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent sure what exactly they talked about, but it's very
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  Speaker 3: likely that they discussed religious matters as well. as the
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  Speaker 3: trouble with their young son, Alexi, and his, you know,
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  Speaker 3: his blood, his bum blood. And Greg probably tried his
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  Speaker 3: best to come off as charming, a little enigmatic, as
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  Speaker 3: was his reputation. And most importantly, Ben, as you point out,
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  Speaker 3: like ZZ Top levels of cool.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Because of the beard.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. He had a cool beard. He was one
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  Speaker 1: pair of Ray-Bans away.
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  Speaker 3: Right. So, We should have gone with the sunglasses version
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  Speaker 3: of the logo.
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  Speaker 1: We should have. It's never too late, right? A little
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  Speaker 1: bit after this hang sesh, our buddy Greg goes back
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  Speaker 1: home to Siberia and he doesn't make his way to St.
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  Speaker 1: Petersburg again until July of the next year. And once
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  Speaker 1: he gets back to the big city, he sends the
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  Speaker 1: ruler of Russia a telegram. And it's got kind of
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  Speaker 1: this you up vibe. He's saying, hey, Nick, can I
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  Speaker 1: send you an icon of Saint Simeon that I was
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  Speaker 1: talking about earlier, the patron saint of the Urals? If
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  Speaker 1: the legend about Greg receiving a vision of this saint
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  Speaker 1: is actually true, then, Noel, I think we can reasonably
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  Speaker 1: assume he told the Tsar about his visions during their
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  Speaker 1: first meeting, and he may have used that story to
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  Speaker 1: support his claims of magical power.
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  Speaker 3: For sure. This also would seem to be his kind
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  Speaker 3: of calling card, you know, this particular patron saint that
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  Speaker 3: he claims to have been visited by in the night.
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  Speaker 3: Nick and Alexandra were pretty taken by this in a
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  Speaker 3: good way. They met with Rasputin on the 18th of July,
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  Speaker 3: and then once again in October, and the last meeting
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  Speaker 3: was a huge opportunity for our boy Greg. His next
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  Speaker 3: step towards world domination Here, he was able to meet
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  Speaker 3: the Tsar's children.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is a part, folks, where Noel, Max,
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  Speaker 1: and I may not entirely agree. Guys, I think Rasputin
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  Speaker 1: was planning this all along.
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  Speaker 3: You think he was playing the long game from the start,
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  Speaker 3: working his way up to getting in with the clergy,
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  Speaker 3: getting introduced around to the inset there in St. Petersburg,
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  Speaker 3: and ultimately with the end goal. of influencing politics.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, because we don't know exactly when Rasputin learned
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  Speaker 1: of Alexei's hemophilia, but it's fair to assume that he
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  Speaker 1: caught wind of it through the aristocratic rumor mill before
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  Speaker 1: his first meeting with the Tsar. In August of 1906,
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  Speaker 1: he asked for permission to pray for Alexei's health. And
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  Speaker 1: after Rasputin meets the boy one time, the Tsarina, the
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  Speaker 1: Empress Alexandra, is sold. And she's walking around, she's saying, oh,
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  Speaker 1: this guy Rasputin, he genuinely does have holy powers. Not once,
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  Speaker 1: but multiple times, he has used these powers to stop
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  Speaker 1: my son's pain and to staunch his bleeding.
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  Speaker 3: He's a magic man. It's true. At least that's what
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  Speaker 3: she believed. And her conviction only grew from there, especially
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  Speaker 3: once it came to be the spring of 1907 when
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  Speaker 3: the Tsarina summoned Rasputin to pray over her son after
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  Speaker 3: he had a very dangerous internal hemorrhage, which as we know,
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  Speaker 3: if your blood's not clotting, that's going to potentially be
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  Speaker 3: a death sentence. So the boy did recover the next morning.
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  Speaker 3: This also won over Alexandra's close friend, Anna Virbova. who
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  Speaker 3: would later become one of Rasputin's biggest boosters and disciples.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Rasputin was able to leverage these apparent miracles
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  Speaker 1: to great success. He insulated himself further and further into
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  Speaker 1: the inner life of the Tsar. If we fast forward
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  Speaker 1: a little bit, we're going to be jumping in time here.
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  Speaker 1: If we fast forward to the summer of 1912, again,
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  Speaker 1: Alexei has a problem. He develops a hemorrhage in his
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  Speaker 1: thigh and groin after a rough carriage ride near the
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  Speaker 1: imperial hunting grounds. This creates a large hematoma, and it
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  Speaker 1: brings with it a serious fever, a lot of pain,
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  Speaker 1: the genuine possibility of death. At the time this occurs,
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  Speaker 1: Rasputin is back in Siberia, so the Empress of Russia
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  Speaker 1: is sends a frantic telegram and she's like, oh, please, Rasputin,
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  Speaker 1: you holy man, pray for my Alexei. And Rasputin responds
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  Speaker 1: pretty lickety split for the telegram system at the time.
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  Speaker 1: We have the direct quote. God has seen your tears
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  Speaker 1: and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The little one
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  Speaker 1: will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother
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  Speaker 1: him too much. Ben, that right there is a big key.
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  Speaker 3: Because as we know, a lot of times in these
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  Speaker 3: early-ish days of medicine, practicing medicine really did have a
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  Speaker 3: different meaning because a lot of times they would do
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  Speaker 3: more harm than good when you had doctors poking around, bloodletting,
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  Speaker 3: doing all kinds of things like that, potentially using contaminated instruments.
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  Speaker 3: So the suggestion to maybe have the doctors just back
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  Speaker 3: off a little bit may have been enough to cause
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  Speaker 3: the boy to heal kind of naturally.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that point you make about bloodletting. That
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  Speaker 1: is not a good course of treatment for a hemophiliac.
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  Speaker 1: The czar, of course, has the best medical minds in
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  Speaker 1: the country at his beck and call. These moffins are
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  Speaker 1: keep and watch over young Alexei day and night. By
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  Speaker 1: the next morning, the kid still is not getting better.
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  Speaker 1: He very well could pass away. But the empress, Alexandra...
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  Speaker 1: knows that Rasputin is praying for her son. So she's
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  Speaker 1: encouraged and lo and behold, the kiddo stops bleeding the
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  Speaker 1: next day and the doctors are flummoxed. One of them
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: comes up a lot in several of the accounts we've
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: read about this is a guy named Dr.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: S.P.
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  Speaker 1: Federov. And he says this recovery is, quote, wholly inexplicable
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  Speaker 1: from a medical point of view.
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  Speaker 3: Based on what they knew at the time. Yep.
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  Speaker 1: Important caveat.
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  Speaker 3: That same doctor, Fedorov, would later really kind of understand
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  Speaker 3: the empress's perspective in saying Rasputin would come in, walk
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  Speaker 3: up to the patient, look at him, and spit. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: that's a new one. The bleeding would stop in no time.
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  Speaker 3: How could the empress not trust Rasputin after that?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it's a good question, Doc, because this bizarre recovery,
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  Speaker 1: nigh inexplicable, remains one of the most mysterious chapters of
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the whole Rasputin legend. And honestly, from a statistical standpoint
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  Speaker 1: at this time in history, the kid should have died.
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  Speaker 1: We don't know exactly how he recovered, but it leads
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: us to a fascinating run of speculation.
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  Speaker 3: Here's where we really cross over into stuff they don't
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: want you to know territory.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, man. It's possible that Rasputin actually did help Alexei
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  Speaker 1: by advising the doctors not to mess with him. It's
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  Speaker 1: nuts because, okay, he may have been able to use
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: hypnosis to stem Alexei's bleeding, which we know sounds crazy
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to your earlier point, but some modern doctors in 2026,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: even now, argue that hypnotic techniques can be effective in
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: managing hemophilia. Max, let's get a sound cue. This is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: not medical advice.
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  Speaker 3: To do with calming him down, right? And like lowering
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: his blood pressure potentially just literally by lulling him into
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: a calmer state. What happens if you ever like have
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: a heart monitor or like a fitness tracker and you
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: do say like yoga or like some kind of really
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: low impact yoga or meditation, you will see your heart
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: rate go down significantly. Yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Actually, I really like the way you put that because
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it does make sense. That may be the efficacy. The
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: most interesting theory that we have found comes from folks
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: like Alexei's French tutor. It's a guy named Pierre Gilliard.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: He and others argue that Rasputin actually controlled Alexei's bleeding
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and By stopping doctors, the best doctors in the country,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from giving the kid a newfangled drug called aspirin.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Which is a blood thinner.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Which is a blood thinner.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: They didn't know that though, right?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: They didn't know. They knew it could relieve all sorts
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of pain, but... People didn't learn it was an anti-clotting agent.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: So some people take it, older people take it for
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that very reason. It's got a dual purpose, but they
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: didn't know about that. People didn't learn it was an
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: anti-clotting agent until the 1950s. So other people might have
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: hemophilia and take aspirin for pain and they would die
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: as their blood refuses to clot. So, you know, by
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: hook or by crook, Rasputin banning medical treatment for Alexei
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: may have actually saved the kid's life.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: You know, and this is a story you hear often,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: but I watched the Netflix series Death by Lightning, which
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: is about James A. Garfield and his assassin, Charles J. Guto,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I believe was his name. Really, really interesting four-episode miniseries.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: But what ultimately killed Garfield was the doctors poking around
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: in there way too much.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Jump in here. Isn't Garfield the one where Alexander Graham
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: Bell got involved in stuff?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: It is the one. Yes. Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: Or was it somebody else? It was Graham Bell.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And both of those folks are dead.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. Great.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Just quick update on Bell and Garfield. So now we're
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in a situation, if we're Rasputin, where we are set
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: for life. So long as the son of the emperor survives,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: we don't really have to do anything else. We don't
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: have to struggle as a Siberian peasant anymore. Unfortunately, there's
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: a bit of an ego and a bit of a
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: dark side to this so-called miracle man. Rumors start with
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the other children, the four daughters, but Noel We gotta
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: do something else before we get to that.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: That's right, Ben. We have to paint a little bit
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: of a larger picture here because the actual rulers of
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Russia at the time truly believed that man was God's gift,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: that he was imbued with mystical powers.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: A magic man like the Barracuda song.
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  Speaker 3: He's a magic man.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait. What's the band?
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Well, Barracuda is another song.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's the same band.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Magic Man song band. It is Heart.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Heart. It was Heart who did Barracuda and Magic Man.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Correct. Barracuda. We got there. We did. They believe in
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: this guy. They're all in. They're all in with Rasputin.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: And they, of course, are putting a lot of faith
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: in him. They are using, they are taking advice and
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's the kind of advice that can become policy.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: That can truly change the course of history.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Old Tsar Nick II even gives Rasputin an official
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: position on the court. He deems him or hires him
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: as the lampadnik, lamplighter. The entire job of the lamplighter
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is to keep the lamps lit before religious icons or
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: shrines throughout the palace. Interesting gig. Yeah, it's also somehow
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a real job. Yeah, I know. It reminds me of,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: not naming names, but it reminds me of some of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: our more big britches friends who have an entourage of
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: inexplicable jobs. Like this guy, Snacks. What's he do? He
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: gets the snacks.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And to jump in here real quick, it does remind
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: me of, we actually have an episode from a number
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of years ago about a Russian empress who, that was
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: just like, everyone hated her and she was really mean
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: and she became really bitter. I mean, she had an
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: ice palace and there was someone who stood inside of
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like a statue of an elephant and blew water out.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a Russian thing to have
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: the most awful jobs.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: For sure. Well, in this case, it was a feature,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: not a bug because it gave him access. Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: He had free roam of the joint as a Lampidnik.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: He was able to, Get into any room in the palace, essentially,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: even one without an icon or a shrine. He was
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: able to walk around the grounds as he pleased and.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Traverse the secret passages, no doubt.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, sir. And he had his... He asked Tsar
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Nick for a favor. And this calls back to our
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: first episode on Rasputin. He said, hey, buddy... Can you
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: help me officially change my name? I don't want to
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: be Rasputin anymore. I want to be Rasputin Novie, which
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: means Rasputin New.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he had that New Coke feel. So despite his
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: priestly persona, I guess, I mean, he had styled himself
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: as a holy man.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: It was kind of an open secret that he was
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: all about accepting bribes, which included sexual favors. The rumors
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: of all of the, you know, canoodling with his various
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: followers over the years continued to follow him around, likely
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: for a very good reason. He also ruthlessly worked behind
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: the scenes in order to, you know, expand his influence
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: in whatever situation he found him in. And in terms
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: of like the society that he lived in, this is
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: about as high as you can get in terms of
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: expanding your influence. So he was going to take that
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: opportunity and run with it. You can say a lot
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: of things about this guy, but he was not a
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: good dude.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's be clear. Not a good dude. Along with
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: his followers, he gained a lot of enemies. These old
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: rumors of heresy and sexual abuse from his hometown were
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Pokrov Yusko, they follow him like a shadow to St. Petersburg.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: The prime minister orders an investigation by the secret police.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: In fact, the prime minister goes to the czar himself
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and he's like, Nick, you got to get rid of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: this creepy guy. The prime minister and the secret police
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: are unsuccessful. They have proven shenanigans. Rasputin is not exiled.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: His influence keeps growing.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he really had his creepy claws in the
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: royal family. So now Rasputin wasn't necessarily trying to keep
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: all of this stuff secret anymore because I think he
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: just had gotten pretty emboldened by his newfound power and influence.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: He felt a little bit untouchable, right? So outside of
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the royal court, he would often preach that physical contact
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: with him was a right of purification.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: That's so David Koresh, dude.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, exactly. And it's something you hear a lot
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: about in these– Even today, there's a lot of little
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: weird subsets of Christianity. I think there's one that's called
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the International House of Prayer for All People, where their
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: leader grows his fingernails out really mega, mega long and
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: has his disciples wash his feet. And I think you
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: can buy the water even or something like that.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: And the International House of Prayer is literally IHOP.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: That is true. For all people. It's for all people.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: I'm not here to demonize anybody's faith, of course. I
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: just seem to have heard these rumors about that particular sect.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I did go eat at a lovely buffet that they
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: have in one of their chapters in my hometown. Really,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: really good food, but hanging over the fellowship hall.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: No, they don't.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: They serve like soul food and stuff, but hanging over
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: the fellowship hall is a giant portrait of this dude.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course. And obviously, Greg would have loved a
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: giant portrait of himself.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, certainly. They exist and were haunted and made the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: subject of Ghostbusters 2.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So this guy is banging left and right, and
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: he is rationalizing it by saying, sleeping with me is
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: purifying yourself for God. He's off the wagon. He's back
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: on the booze. He has tons of affairs with everyone
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: in society that he can get a hold of, from
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: sex workers on the street to married women of the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: upper class. And several of his earlier followers are recanting
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: their allegiance. And these women who have been manipulated and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: abused by him come public and say, you have sexually
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: assaulted me. One of his accusers is a woman named
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Kionya Berletskaya. She looks for help from the guy we
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, he'll be backstabbed.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he got screwed by Rasputin. This is Rasputin's original patron,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: now estranged and discarded. Theophan doesn't just believe this lady.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: He also becomes convinced that his once-upon-a-time friend is an
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: actual snake and a threat to the overall monarchy.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: No, but he was sort of the lone voice screaming
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: into the abyss. Everyone else seemed to be under this
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: dude's spell. So his concerns, try as he might, fell
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: on deaf ears, and he found himself increasingly alienated as
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Rasputin began to gain more and more control. Anybody speaking
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: ill of Rasputin would probably begin to be looked at
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: as an enemy of the state. Political opponents of the
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: monarchy leveraged Alexandra's German heritage and claimed that she had
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: loyalties to Germany rather than Russia, and that Rasputin wasn't
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: just making the decisions, being the power behind the throne,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: but he himself was also, this is another kind of
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: echo of a previous spy accusation, was a spy for Germany.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and tensions are growing because we're rocketing toward
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: World War I at this time, and Russia and Germany
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: are beefed up. But throughout all of this scandal, throughout
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: all these rumors, the Tsar's family still is ten toes
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: down for Rasputin. They treat him like a family member.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the World War, we got to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: return to the story of the kids.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, they basically are told to treat him
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: like a. like a, I don't know, a grandpapa type
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: figure or a cool uncle. At the very least, they
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: were referred to him as our friend, friend of the family.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: And they, Rasputin, Alexei, and Lazar's four daughters, all kind
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: of kicked it and seemed to get along like an extended,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: weird extended family. Rasputin would send them telegrams when he
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: was away, well wishes, encouragements, birthday greetings. like this one
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: from 1908 to directly to the nine-year-old at the time, Maria.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: And yeah, Ben, you want to read this one? This
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: is very telling.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something we should look into. The telegram goes,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: My dear M, my little friend, may the Lord help
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you to carry your cross with wisdom and joy in Christ.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: This world is like the day. Look, it's already evening.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So it is with the cares of the world.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, telling, I think, in the sense that it shows
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: sort of what you might argue is a character that
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: he was playing, you know, like this kind of jovial,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: holy man that was sort of a friend to the children.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Not bad, you know, kind of charming, to be honest.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It's saying, look, it's later than you think. Time passes quickly.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about everything.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Carpe diem.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very hallmarky, right? It's a genuinely touching sentiment, but
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in 1910, one of the royal governesses is scandalized because
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: she learns that Rasputin is allowed... to enter the nursery
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: while the girls are in their nightgowns. Yes, yes.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: And this would have been considered wildly inappropriate at the time.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: And governess Sofia Ivovna Choyucheva desperately wanted to, was petitioning
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: even to get Rasputin banned from the nurseries. Tsar Nicholas
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: was on board and he did ask Rasputin to maybe
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: stop lurking around the nursery, scantily clad children. And eventually, however,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Alexandra fired the governess.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. This is getting tough. The governess again, Sophia,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: as you said, no reaches out to other members of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the Imperial family. And these folks who are not in
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the Rasputin bubble are scandalized by the story. One of
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: those scandalized people is grand Duchess Xenia and Alex Janova,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: she is Nick's sister. She had heard these earlier rumors
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: about Rasputin. It shows up in her writing. We've got
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to give you the quote. Noel, if you could do
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the honors, this calls back to the first episode.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: The attitude of Alex and the children to that sinister Grigori,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: whom they consider to be almost a saint, when in
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: fact he is only a kilst, What is that word again?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: This is for a second time this has come up. No, no, no.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: That's the weird cult, right?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So they're using that almost as a direct insult.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: That makes sense based on what we were talking about earlier.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: This was the subset of Christianity that supposedly did like
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: blood magic kind of stuff.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Right. Blood sugar sex magic. Orgies.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Self-flagellation, blood sugar sex magic.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: They had it. Sex magic. So he's continuing the quote.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: He's always there. goes into the nursery, visits Olga and
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Tatiana while they're getting ready for bed, sits there talking
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to them and harassing them.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not good. Olga and Tatiana are the older teenage
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: daughters of the royal family.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: And it's not to say that a cool uncle can't
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: be loving or put kids to bed or something like that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: I think we're talking about all of this through the
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: lens of what we know this guy was getting up
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: to in his free time and just how slippery he was.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: And I just think there's no world where this was
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: all just, you know, platonic uncle Lee affection.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: And it's tough because all the primary accounts we can
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: find that are not rumors about his interactions with the children,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: they are characterized as innocent, but we, we don't know
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the full story. We do know that in 1910, Another
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: governess at the nursery claimed she had been sexually assaulted
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: by Rasputin. She had once been an ardent follower of Greg's.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Her name, Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova. She went to the Empress.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: She went to Alexandra. Alexandra did not believe her. There
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was an investigation, whoosh, whoosh, hard air quotes there. And
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: eventually they fired that governess, too.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, again, enemy of the state, man. Like this guy
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: had his hooks in so deep that anybody that would
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: talk ill of him even if the things– even if
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: the smoke seems to indicate fire, no. They couldn't possibly
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: wrap their heads around it, the royal family. They were
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: just so enamored by this man. rumors continued to pop up.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Stuff entered the public sphere as well. So it started
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: to leak. This guy was such a controversial figure. You
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: had things making it out of the highly insulated palace
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: intrigue bubble of the royal family. People claimed up and
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: down at the time again with, well, at the time
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: and in some cases to this day, with no proof
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: that Rasputin had seduced Tsarina Alexandra as well as having
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: sexual relations with the children.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: There were cartoons that were circulated. I mean, this guy
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: was becoming like a, an absolute boogeyman.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was becoming part of the zeitgeist leveraged by
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: political opponents of the monarchy.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Who's this scary pedophile whispering in the czar's ear.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Just so. And there were also extremely graphic
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: cartoons that I am so thankful for. We don't have
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: to show here.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Have you seen him?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And eventually, old Nick has had enough, the ruler of Russia.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: So he tells his buddy Greg to hit the bricks.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: It's like you got to leave town at least for
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a little while. They're still, to be clear, they are
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: still close friends. He's like, you just got to get
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: out of town for a little bit.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Let things cool down a little bit, man.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. There are too many horrific rumors. Alexandra is
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: super against this.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: This just shows, man. She was the one who was largely,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you know, his biggest supporter.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Very much so, yeah. And Rasputin complied. So he took
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1911. Again, we're jumping around
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in time. But he does return from Palestine. He continues
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to influence the Russian Empire and the monarchy. He goes
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: back and forth from his hometown in Siberia to St. Petersburg.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: He is in Siberia in July of 1914 when the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: first assassination attempt occurs.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: That's right, a 33-year-old woman named Kionia Guseva stabbed Rasputin
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: right in his guts outside of his home in his hometown, right,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: in Siberia, in Pokrovskoe. She had a fascinating backstory unto herself,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: quite heartbreaking character, in fact. Upon the stab, she yelled,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: I have killed the Antichrist. That says it all. I mean,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: he was getting that level of reputation. She chased him
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: through the village streets, hoping to do him in with
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: the coup de grace, but she failed and was almost
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: murdered in the streets by a crowd that was gathering.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and eventually, Kionya ends up in an asylum, but
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that's a story for another day. Rasputin had only left
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: his house because he heard Russia was preparing for war,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and he wanted to send a telegram to his buddy,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: the Tsar, convincing the guy against going to war. And
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: there's the thing about stabs. You've probably heard it before, folks.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Both people die in a knife fight. The first person
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: dies at the scene. The other person dies in the ambulance.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: What we're saying is this stomach stab is no joke.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: And even for all his alleged superpowers, Rasputin almost dies.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: He gets a successful surgery. He spends some time jammed
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: up in a hospital. It keeps him just this side
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of the grave.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: But.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: As any student of history knows, this was not the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: last assassination attempt. The next one, just a few years later,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: does succeed. And it's quite a mystery.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Well, Ben, you mentioned superpowers. I think we've already discussed
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: this notion that he maybe did have some sort of,
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: you know, esoteric occult powers. Maybe he smelled great.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Well, sure. But also, like I said, that is how
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: they went all the way with that in the Anastasia
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: animated film where he literally– doing like spells and hypnosis, right?
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: All that stuff. But another rumor about him was that
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: he was like unkillable. And I think that this stabbing
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: probably is what contributed to that.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. A lot of people
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: were not listening to Greg's earlier victim, Theofan, but there
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: was a splinter group of nobles and politicians who were
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: maybe less concerned with the sexual assault allegations and more
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: concerned that this guy's influence would endanger the future of Russia.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So it came to pass in December of 1916 that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a far-right politician named Vladimir, who hated the monarchy, along
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: with a grand duke and a prince named Felix Yusupov,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: they conspired. They were going to lure Rasputin, over to
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Felix's house, Moika Palace, and there they were going to
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: murder him. Here's what we know. On the early morning
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of December 30th, Grigori Rasputin died. He had three gunshot wounds,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: one of which was point-blank to his forehead. That's the
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: closest we can get to provable information. The rest of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the circumstances, as you said, surrounding his death, remain a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: matter of intense speculation even today. We will never know
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: exactly what happened, and that's not because the rumors and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: later tall tales are too wild. Instead, it's because the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: best prime source for the events comes from an autopsy
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: that is lost to history. There's no original copy of it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And the memoirs of Felix Yusupov himself, one of the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: guys who hated Rasputin so much that he literally murdered him.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: As you said, this account is embellished, but it is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: still the best snapshot we have of this murder. It's
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a situation where Felix and his co-conspirators invite Rasputin over
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to the palace. Rasputin gets there shortly after midnight. And again,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: this is from those memoirs. Servants usher the guy into
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the basement. There is Felix offering him tea and cakes.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: And per Felix, the cakes have been laced with cyanide.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Rasputin initially doesn't want the cakes. And Felix is like, nah,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I'm a great host. You got to try them.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: He eats them.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And let's just imagine that you were trying to kill
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: this guy. He's snacking on the cakes and you're sort
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of waiting for him to die, but he's not dying.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: And then he says, Hey, bro, you got any wine?
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Gosh, this reminds me of that scene in Clockwork Orange
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: where the writer who Alex has like wronged rescues him
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: from the, you know, the rain after being beaten by
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: the cops. And he's like realizes who he is. And
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: he goes, food all right.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Try the wine. Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: All of its lace. He's really trying to make sure
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: that this dude gets his gets his dose.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Felix is saying for you, my guy, of course,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: we we know per Felix's account, the wine was Madeira.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: He also apparently poisoned that no matter to Greg Rasputin,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: this guy. houses, three glasses of wine. He's still not dead.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Now it's not even surprising. Now it's getting awkward. Now
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: we're like the office version of an assassination attempt. And
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: who knows what they talked about. At this point, it's
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: 2.30 in the morning. Felix is like, excuse me for
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: a sec, bro. He goes upstairs where his two co-conspirators are.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And they've probably been sitting around waiting to wonder what happens.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Felix takes a revolver. from that right-wing politician. He runs
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: back down the stairs. He says, Rasputin, look at that
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: crucifix and say a prayer. And he shoots him in
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: the chest. And then they drive, they steal the dude's clothing.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're trying to create like an alibi, I guess.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: They're making it look like he, you know, walked home
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: and was just fine.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Yeah, they drive to Rasputin's apartment and one
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: of them is wearing Rasputin's coat and hat. And like
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: you said, Noel, they're thinking, we want it to look
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like this guy just went home later that night and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: then disappeared. And, you know, they do that little dogleg trip.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: They high five each other. Their feint is accomplished. They
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: return back to the palace. And Noel, as you and
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I and Max were talking about off air, Felix goes
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: back to the basement to check the body. And Greg
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: leaps up.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: He springs to life in classic Jason form or, you know,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Terminator form. I mean, yeah, the guy, it does appear
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: maybe not unkillable because we know how this goes, but, uh,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: He's a tough nut to crack. And he like, you know,
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, can you imagine? I would have lost it.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Felix is very, very afraid. He runs upstairs like you're
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: supposed to do in a horror movie. Well, I guess
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: he is in the basement, so it's the only choice
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: he had. One of the co-conspirators then shoots Rasputin. This time,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken, Ben, is this the one that's
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: like in the noggin, like right in the head? Yeah, yeah.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: This is where we get the head shot. And the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: boys wrap him up in a cloth. And drive him
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: over to the Petrovsky Bridge. They throw his corpse in
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the river. So that's where the legend about him being
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: under ice and coming back.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, and he ultimately drowned. Right.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Right. This is crazy. So the news spreads really quickly,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: probably because one of those co-conspirators is bragging about it.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: He brags to two cop or one cop and two soldiers.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: And he's like, hey. Don't worry about that Rasputin guy.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: We killed the hell out of him.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Also, don't tell anyone, right? You said you're cool, right?
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: You're fine. That's fine. Snitches and stitches and all that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: The body of Grigori Rasputin was discovered on January 1st,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: just a couple hundred feet downstream from the bridge where
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: he was dumped. The autopsy did report no signs of
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: poisoning or water in the lungs, and records indicate that
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: his cause of death was a single bullet fired into
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: his head at point-blank range.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he is buried the very next day at
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a small church in South St.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Petersburg.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of people go to the funeral. They
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: kept it quiet. It was just the Tsar, Tsarina, Alexandra,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of course, and some of their close friends. The Tsar also, folks,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: did not invite Rasputin's wife, did not invite Rasputin's main mistress,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: did not invite Rasputin's children. They wanted to build a
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: new church over the grave site, but you know, world war. Yeah.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Talk about like Indian burial ground vibes. I mean, like
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: you're really going to build a church on the grave
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: of an evil man. That's going to be like a demonic,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: you know, unkillable man. That's pretty weird. Yeah.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Uh, as we know, uh, our buddy Nick abdicates the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: throne of Russia in March of 1970.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Bad job.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, uh, when he did that folks dug up
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Rasputin's body and they burned it.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, that's the move. Sorry.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Just gotta be sure. Right.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, totally. He really is got like Jason
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Voorhees vibes and definitely don't build a church on cause
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: that is definitely going to become an evil church.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Like in that, uh, in that excellent film, uh,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: mouth of madness.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Stick in the mouth of madness.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Sam Neill.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: What a good one. That's a fun one. I highly
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: recommend anyone that hasn't seen.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: It's John Carpenter. Yep.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, it is John Carpenter. You're right. Well, these folks
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: didn't want Rasputin's grave to become a kind of like
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: rallying point. Yeah, you know, there were a lot of concerns.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Let's go to the Church of Rasputin.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, spiritual and political concerns. This officially is the end
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. But just as in his time alive,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Rumors about him continue to stick around and even grow,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: dare we say, metastasize in the modern day.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Ben, you got to say this one. You've been wanting
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: to say the * * * * stuff, man.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: You want to do?
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: You have to. We got to end it on a
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: blue note.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. You and I both know that we are
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: probably going to have an interesting conversation with our IT department.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: about how we have used our work laptops to put
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: in searches like Rasputin penis size. Let's just put it
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: this way.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: He weren't no Napoleon.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: He's a big fella.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest rumors about Rasputin is the girth
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: and size of his penis.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it would seem that is where all of his
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: mystical power resided, much like Samson's in his hair.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Good comparison there. There's a long-running legend that
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Greg was once rocking a member anywhere from 12 to
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: 13 inches in length what yeah he had a front tail.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Oh my god i had to unroll that thing like
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: an elephant trunk um that's wild man quite in doubt
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: indeed according to autopsy reports however sadly i'm gonna say
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: i because i want to believe right this is this
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: is uh to put it the ben way cartoonishly untrue.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Six max.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Six max.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Fully erect.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: That's a quote from the autopsy.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: He's a grower, not a showman.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The most recent, most infamous claim about
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: this is, okay, so for decades since the guy's death,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: people would say he had a huge, Just.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Say it, Ben. Say dong.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: He had a huge dong. They said he had a
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: huge dong and they treated it like a relic of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: a saint, right? And the story was people were circulating
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: this dead man's dong around to use its various magical powers.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: This is as recent as 1994. Someone claimed to have
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Rasputin's severed penis. It was a dehydrated sea cucumber.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: No. Say it isn't true, Ben. Say it isn't true.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man. I can't imagine liking someone enough
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: to carry around- Their severed penis? Yeah. I don't know
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: if I'm the demographic for that.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think anyone is, or anyone that I want
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: to hang out with.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: That's probably why you and I hang out, because of
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: our agreement. Yeah, for sure. to do that. Yeah, but
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: we do have- I mean.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: If it was your dying wish, I would do it.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it. Great.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to get some weird messages for that one.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Dear Noel Brown, we haven't met before. However, you recently
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: asked about my dying wish.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: And to jump in here, um, Yeah, I actually am
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: about to update my will. And so I'll make sure
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: to put that in the will. I think I might
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: be at a lot of risk because I might go
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: near the state of Ohio sometime soon.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: This is the most forced inclusion.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: It was pretty weak, man.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: There we go. You did it.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Barely. I don't know.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, in with a chance. A win is a win.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: An E for effort.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: There we go. Which is kind of the mantra of
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: our show.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I was about to say the same thing, dude. This
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: is an E for effort kind of show. We do
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: do our best. And I'm glad, hey, somehow we've... I know.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: I know. It is what it is. Somehow we've been
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: allowed to continue to middle our way through this thing
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: for almost a decade. So thanks to y'all out there
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: for keeping us... on the air, because we wouldn't, I
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: don't think they'd let us keep doing it if people
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: weren't listening.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we're flying under the radar, but you are
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the most important part of the show, fellow ridiculous historians.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: We cannot, as you said, Noel, do this without you,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: and we are, jokes aside, we are so grateful. We
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: also are the opposite of grateful to a guy named
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a. the Quister, just like, how long Will
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: his reign of infamy continue?
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: However long it takes to rule the world. Again, bit
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: of a Rasputin fellow. Playing the long game, that's strict.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, playing the long game. And he does have a
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: sick goatee. Big, big, big, big thanks, of course, to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: our super producer. The number one enemy of Ohio, Max Williams.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's Rizzing It Up in Ohio. Remember that one?
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: That kind of went away.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Wait, what was that one?
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Ohio was just one of those brain rot things. It
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: was like the kids were talking about Rizzing It Up
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: in Ohio. Ohio became like a meme with the Gen
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Alphas for no good reason. It's like 6-7, you know?
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: It's like a nonsense meme.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: Can I say something really quickly? This is unrelated, but
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: also related. On the way into Nashville driving, I hit
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: some really bad traffic and was able to really take
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: in some of the billboards on the side of the road.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: And there was a series in succession of billboards for
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: this like gun store. And one of them just had
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: a machine gun on it. And it just said Riz. What?
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: And then the next one said.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Was this I-24? It was I-24.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: And then the next one had a big old Glock
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: on it. And it said pistol maxing. With two X's.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: And then another one that said, we sell flamethrowers.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I don't like the second one, but the first
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: one and the third are great.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: No, but it's just, they're trying to co-opt brain rot
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: talk to sell guns to children?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I'm confused. And flamethrowers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And big thanks,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: of course, to Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop. Big,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: big thanks to I don't know. We should do a
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: history of billboards. That might be a tough one. Big,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: big thanks to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: you dig us, you'll love them.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: You sure will. And Ben, what a bang up job
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: on this multi-part Rasputin adventure that you've taken us on.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, geez. We went there together.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: We did, but you wrote the map. You set the tone.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I have never stolen a penis.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: Fair, fair. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.