Latest / Stuff You Should Know / SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Rasputin's death?

Transcript

SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Rasputin's death? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and this week for s
0:04
Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've selected our episode on rest Mutant,
0:09
Speaker 1: the Mad Monk, and I remember it was recorded during
0:12
Speaker 1: a weird time at House Stuff Works. For some reason.
0:15
Speaker 1: We were recording in an old corner office and there
0:18
Speaker 1: were weird blackout drapes on the windows. It was very odd,
0:22
Speaker 1: but it lent itself perfectly to this episode. And a
0:26
Speaker 1: heads up, I should say, Uh, this one has a
0:30
Speaker 1: lot of talk about Genitalia, so if you're a parent,
0:33
Speaker 1: you may just want to be aware of that. Are
0:35
Speaker 1: we talking about rest mutin You're darn Tuton. Welcome to
0:42
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
0:51
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, This Charles W.
0:54
Speaker 1: Choke Bryant, and this is stuff you should know the podcast.
0:58
Speaker 1: That's right. Are we doing rest ut Yeah, we're doing rescuting.
1:02
Speaker 1: No disputing, resputing, that's right. Actually there's a lot of disputing,
1:06
Speaker 1: but there's tons of it. The man's whole life is
1:09
Speaker 1: in dispute. Mystic, hypnotist, possible healer, porn star, Yeah pretty much,
1:18
Speaker 1: not a porn star. He was into some freaky stuff.
1:21
Speaker 1: He could have been. He's a big dude, six foot four. Yeah,
1:24
Speaker 1: I saw that written down, And like, you know, there's
1:26
Speaker 1: pictures of him, which is great because this is the
1:28
Speaker 1: time in our world history where we had photographs of
1:31
Speaker 1: these folks, right. But even even even that said, like
1:36
Speaker 1: the fact that there are surviving photographs of him when
1:39
Speaker 1: he was just some peasant Russia really speaks to the
1:43
Speaker 1: impact that he had on the people around him totally.
1:46
Speaker 1: There are very few Russian peasantry portraits, you know, or
1:50
Speaker 1: studies of a specific person from like you know, eighteen
1:53
Speaker 1: eighty eighteen ninety even that's a good point, um, But
1:56
Speaker 1: there's pictures of Rescputing before he became famous in those
2:00
Speaker 1: creepy eyes. Yeah, it depends on the photo. I think.
2:04
Speaker 1: I think some of them they make a little more creepy.
2:06
Speaker 1: Some of them look photoshop, yeah, like the glowing ones
2:09
Speaker 1: and stuff. Plus also and he's like I think he
2:12
Speaker 1: turns it on sometimes to like freak. Yeah, so yeah,
2:18
Speaker 1: we're talking about recipe. I think everybody kind of has
2:20
Speaker 1: a certain idea. He's also known as the Mad Monk,
2:24
Speaker 1: and he was a prolific lover. Yeah, he's a kinky man, yeah. Um,
2:32
Speaker 1: And he had the ear of the tsar and the Tsarina.
2:36
Speaker 1: The last ones is our Nicholas the second and his
2:40
Speaker 1: wife of the Romanoff. Yeah, the romanof It's another way
2:43
Speaker 1: to put it. So Alexander, Alexandra and Nicholas the Second
2:48
Speaker 1: um invited respute into their court, which we'll get into.
2:51
Speaker 1: Let's just start chronologically here though. Like birth, Yeah, well
2:56
Speaker 1: he was born Gregory if m a bitch resputing in
3:01
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine Siberia. Imagine being born in Siberian eighteen
3:05
Speaker 1: sixty nine is just a big ball of laughs, you know,
3:09
Speaker 1: or in two thousand thirteen. Um, and he supposedly, although
3:15
Speaker 1: this was disputed by his daughter, I believe. Yeah, I
3:18
Speaker 1: want to say, for me, this is so much dispect
3:21
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Resputant had children. Yeah, like, he had
3:25
Speaker 1: a family. He was married from age twenty one and
3:28
Speaker 1: they still exist apparently in in France. One of them
3:32
Speaker 1: lives in Los Angeles. I believe porn Star. I don't
3:36
Speaker 1: think so, but I mean think about it, Resputin and
3:39
Speaker 1: to spare that in mind, he was married and had
3:41
Speaker 1: a family. Yeah, this whole time, from from age twenty on. Yeah,
3:45
Speaker 1: that's a little weird actually, so his daughter, I believe,
3:48
Speaker 1: disputed this, but apparently early on his religious activity was
3:53
Speaker 1: um and he was involved with a group called the
3:56
Speaker 1: Clists with a K in an age why and then
4:01
Speaker 1: everything else normal and then um they were into some serious,
4:06
Speaker 1: like you know, sexual activity like self flagellation that that
4:11
Speaker 1: erupted into orgies, self flagellation in front of a group,
4:15
Speaker 1: and then people would be like, Okay, it's humpy time. Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 1: with the idea that in order to cleanse yourself of sins,
4:22
Speaker 1: you just had to do a lot of that sin.
4:24
Speaker 1: Is that right, Yeah? And the reason that they would
4:26
Speaker 1: have orgies was because it was part of their religious
4:30
Speaker 1: belief was that if somebody was having trouble with sin,
4:33
Speaker 1: you had to help them work it out get rid
4:35
Speaker 1: of the sin by doing the sin right. And apparently
4:38
Speaker 1: it was a sin to have an orgy, and so
4:39
Speaker 1: they did it a lot. Interesting and they were hated
4:43
Speaker 1: among the Russians. Basically, they were mistrusted. They were just
4:47
Speaker 1: viewed on upon as weird, and they were actually fairly subversive,
4:52
Speaker 1: and they knew that they were viewed like this. So
4:54
Speaker 1: one of the tenants of being a Clist was that
4:57
Speaker 1: you went to the church the Russian Orthodox and you
5:00
Speaker 1: were fervent and outspoken and super into the Russian Orthodox
5:05
Speaker 1: Church by all outward appearances. That was what you did
5:09
Speaker 1: if you were a clist. And then and then in
5:11
Speaker 1: your dirty secret was you would whip yourself and have
5:14
Speaker 1: sex with like twenty people at the same time. Exactly nice. Well,
5:18
Speaker 1: like I said, His daughter disputed that he was involved,
5:20
Speaker 1: although historians say that he was. So who knows. I
5:23
Speaker 1: read that she said that he was rejected by the Clifts. Yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: well he might have. Well, never mind, we'll get to that.
5:32
Speaker 1: He may have been too much for them. Um. So
5:36
Speaker 1: he built his reputation traveling on Russia as a as
5:40
Speaker 1: a healer, um, as a as a mystic and a preacher,
5:43
Speaker 1: and eventually landed in St. Petersburg in nineteen o five
5:47
Speaker 1: somehow got introduced to the aforementioned zar and Zarina. Yeah,
5:51
Speaker 1: but before that he had become he had undergone a
5:54
Speaker 1: religious conversion. Apparently from about the age of twelve he
5:57
Speaker 1: was like doing it with anything he could get his
5:59
Speaker 1: hands on. Um. And I don't know what age, but
6:04
Speaker 1: I would say before between twelve and twenty, some monk
6:09
Speaker 1: came through town, came through the village and said, you
6:11
Speaker 1: know what, I think you should come with me the monastery.
6:14
Speaker 1: I think you're kind of special. You've got some talent exactly,
6:16
Speaker 1: young man. So he took him to the monastery and
6:19
Speaker 1: and that's where Resputing underwent this religious conversion there and
6:22
Speaker 1: came out like for like really fervently religious, like the
6:25
Speaker 1: real deal. Um, he actually walked from Russia to Palestine
6:30
Speaker 1: and back walked. That's not a short trip. Is there
6:34
Speaker 1: disputing that or is that not that I understand? Okay,
6:36
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that disputed, but I think I think
6:39
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good point to bring up. Anything
6:42
Speaker 1: that sounds even remotely a stretch that's attached to Resputing
6:48
Speaker 1: you should probably take with a grain of salt. Yeah,
6:50
Speaker 1: Because I mean, because he was such an odd, unique
6:53
Speaker 1: individual in art in the world history, there's been like
6:56
Speaker 1: countless stories and I'm sure at the time they were
6:58
Speaker 1: just like rampant story about who this guy was. Yeah,
7:01
Speaker 1: and not only that, most of them were written and
7:03
Speaker 1: spread by his enemies. He's a very hated person contemporarily,
7:08
Speaker 1: so the original accounts are of people who are trying
7:12
Speaker 1: to make him look bad. And then people started basing
7:15
Speaker 1: biographies on those original accounts, And that's why he's got
7:18
Speaker 1: such a bad reputation. There's so much lower and legend
7:21
Speaker 1: and comfabulation surrounding him. That's so you you don't really
7:25
Speaker 1: know much about him. Well he was for him, he
7:28
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm just just a giant Siberian monk
7:31
Speaker 1: looking for a good time. Everyone out to get me.
7:34
Speaker 1: Why everybody got so many hang ups? The haters. So yeah,
7:38
Speaker 1: he makes it. He's already kind of known as a
7:41
Speaker 1: star a start it, uh, star it starts, a religious advisor.
7:48
Speaker 1: By the time he gets to St. Petersburg and he's
7:50
Speaker 1: hanging out there, he's like, we're gonna make it in
7:52
Speaker 1: the big city. This is where the Romanovs live. This
7:55
Speaker 1: is a good place for me to be. And apparently he,
7:58
Speaker 1: like you said, impressed somebody in enough that he was
8:00
Speaker 1: taken to the Roman Austin introduced to them at court.
8:03
Speaker 1: This is might as well be boogie nights. Yeah it is,
8:06
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he's Eddie from the Valley Um. Alright,
8:10
Speaker 1: So he does get introduced and warms his way into
8:13
Speaker 1: the inner circle, not warms his way through. He earned
8:15
Speaker 1: his place in the inner circle. Hee did by healing
8:19
Speaker 1: um hemophiliac son Alexis, who was the heir to the
8:23
Speaker 1: throne and very important to keep around and alive. And uh,
8:27
Speaker 1: he was the only boy in the family. Yeah, despite
8:29
Speaker 1: being a hemophiliac, he would do dumb things like rid
8:31
Speaker 1: horses and fall off them. And apparently on the first
8:35
Speaker 1: time that happened. The second time, um, he was not
8:38
Speaker 1: doing so hot and respute and supposedly healed him, possibly
8:42
Speaker 1: through hypnosis. So with hemophilia, I didn't really realize this.
8:45
Speaker 1: I always thought hemophilia was where you cut yourself and
8:48
Speaker 1: like the your your wound would cloth. It's that as well,
8:53
Speaker 1: right or not it is, yeah, but I thought that
8:55
Speaker 1: was it. Right. Apparently, the much bigger problem is with
8:58
Speaker 1: internal bleeding. You know what's going on, right, And that's
9:01
Speaker 1: what Alexei had. And uh, they were worried about him
9:05
Speaker 1: becoming a more fanatic, so they wouldn't give him any morphine,
9:08
Speaker 1: so he would just suffer like this, these bouts of
9:11
Speaker 1: internal bleeding and resputing. The doctors couldn't do anything. And
9:15
Speaker 1: resputing came along the first time and and basically just
9:19
Speaker 1: took away his pain. Yeah, And in the nineteen twelve
9:21
Speaker 1: that happened again. This is after the horse fall, um,
9:24
Speaker 1: and he was I believe not there at the time,
9:27
Speaker 1: and Zarina gave him a ring and said, hey, respute,
9:31
Speaker 1: and we need you to do your thing again. And
9:33
Speaker 1: he sent a telegram that said, don't sweat it. He's
9:36
Speaker 1: going to recover the next day. And I guess, like
9:39
Speaker 1: you know, long distance hypnosis or whatever happened, or maybe
9:43
Speaker 1: healing prayers, who knows, maybe none of that. Yeah, there's
9:46
Speaker 1: also a hypothesis that he just he exerted the first
9:50
Speaker 1: calming influence over the house about this matter that anyone
9:54
Speaker 1: ever had, and that that in and of itself had
9:57
Speaker 1: a some sort of healing effect. I think supposedly he
10:00
Speaker 1: was known to be a very calming figure with hemophilia.
10:05
Speaker 1: I think to lowering your stress levels will help. Yeah,
10:08
Speaker 1: I'll bet yeah. Man, the stress is a killer, isn't it.
10:11
Speaker 1: It is literally so Um. At the same time, while
10:16
Speaker 1: this is all going on, uh, like you said, there
10:18
Speaker 1: were people out there that did not like him, um,
10:20
Speaker 1: one of which not the least of which was Prime
10:23
Speaker 1: Minister Peter Stolepin. And he was like gathering a case,
10:29
Speaker 1: putting a case together basically to present and get him
10:31
Speaker 1: ousted from the from the court saying, this guy's a
10:34
Speaker 1: crazy sex per bard. Yeah, I think he was not
10:37
Speaker 1: the first one to accuse him of being a clist,
10:39
Speaker 1: but like really was taking that and running with it,
10:42
Speaker 1: like he wanted him gone. And he died shot at
10:46
Speaker 1: the opera before he could make this case. And some
10:48
Speaker 1: say that old Czar Nicholas might have been behind that,
10:52
Speaker 1: but we don't know that for sure. Yeah, he was bizarre. Yeah,
10:54
Speaker 1: they were into referens very well in Russia at the
10:57
Speaker 1: turn of the century. Was especially not a cover up
10:59
Speaker 1: scan else. Um, So Peter Stolypin comes up, he tries
11:05
Speaker 1: it fails, not try to kill him, just try to
11:08
Speaker 1: get him removed. Um we should. Let's let's provide a
11:12
Speaker 1: little backshop here. At about this time, this is a
11:16
Speaker 1: ninetelve um. The Russia is undergoing the world is undergoing
11:21
Speaker 1: a huge transition from agriculture two industrialization, and the Russian
11:29
Speaker 1: peasantry loves the czar. They love those guys. But yeah,
11:35
Speaker 1: in the cities, in urban working classes developing, and they
11:39
Speaker 1: don't love the czar. They don't. They think the czar
11:42
Speaker 1: is disconnected, out of touch. Is back in these agrarian
11:45
Speaker 1: days and everybody's moving forward into the factories, and that
11:47
Speaker 1: there's no that the Czar has no um love for
11:51
Speaker 1: these new people. And this is where Lennon came from,
11:54
Speaker 1: and the Bolsheviks came from, where these factories. So this
11:57
Speaker 1: is all going on in the background that in Russia.
12:00
Speaker 1: Outside of Russia, Europe is going to war for World
12:04
Speaker 1: War One. So Russia is torn between these domestic problems
12:09
Speaker 1: and these international problems, and it's headed by a family
12:14
Speaker 1: that is becoming viewed as increasingly out of touch with
12:18
Speaker 1: what's going on in Russia and therefore have are losing
12:23
Speaker 1: legitimacy pretty quickly. And now all of a sudden, there's
12:26
Speaker 1: this weird guy who humps anything that moves and has
12:30
Speaker 1: the ear of the Czar and the Czarina and who
12:33
Speaker 1: where did he come from? What is what's going on? Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: and increasingly less influence on the czar apparently over the years,
12:40
Speaker 1: but increasingly more influence on the Czarina. She was way
12:44
Speaker 1: into him, especially after he healed the sun twice, or
12:47
Speaker 1: supposedly did, and she definitely believed he did. So, Yeah,
12:51
Speaker 1: that's all exactly, that's all it took. And uh, he
12:56
Speaker 1: even called the Mama and Papa, Yeah, it was interesting.
12:59
Speaker 1: I think that's manipulative. He was probably I take it
13:03
Speaker 1: from my impression that he was being manipulative by calling
13:05
Speaker 1: them that. And I'll bet it was creepy. I bet
13:07
Speaker 1: it was. So he's in the newspapers and stuff. He's
13:10
Speaker 1: he's becoming a well known guy. And I'm sure the
13:13
Speaker 1: industrialists are reading this. And like you said, he was
13:16
Speaker 1: this guy that's at the center of all this, and
13:18
Speaker 1: he's got this great influence and who who even is he? Even? Well,
13:24
Speaker 1: he he had not only influence, but once once Russia
13:27
Speaker 1: joined World War One, um, well it was our Nicholas
13:32
Speaker 1: goes off to command the army, and um the Czarina
13:36
Speaker 1: is left in charge, which means Ran Sputin is sort
13:39
Speaker 1: of in charge, but very close to being in charge himself.
13:42
Speaker 1: And he was in a position to stack well paying,
13:46
Speaker 1: high level government jobs with friends who were incompetent and inept,
13:52
Speaker 1: and they almost completely undermine the infrastructure of Russia. Like
13:58
Speaker 1: trains didn't operate, um, armaments weren't built for the war effort,
14:03
Speaker 1: people weren't fed. There was like nobody running the show
14:07
Speaker 1: and nobody who knew what they're doing. I was running
14:09
Speaker 1: the show and it was all resputants fault and this
14:13
Speaker 1: was the last straw. Yeah, this is what led to
14:16
Speaker 1: the revolution. Well and also to some murder attempts. Well, yeah,
14:22
Speaker 1: he's like Bob Marley. People would try to kill him
14:24
Speaker 1: and it just didn't happen. You know. The first one
14:27
Speaker 1: on sixteen, Um, this woman Konia because Mishna Gouseva. Oh
14:33
Speaker 1: that was good, Chuck, thank you. Apparently was sent by
14:36
Speaker 1: a former friend of his name Sergey Truvanov. He was
14:38
Speaker 1: a monk who was tight with Resputant, but they split
14:41
Speaker 1: up in nineteen eleven because he was kind of disgusted
14:45
Speaker 1: by his you know, humpiness, and uh apparently sent this
14:51
Speaker 1: woman to murder him. And she stabbed him in the
14:54
Speaker 1: stomach um and like it was gnarly. Apparently he had
14:59
Speaker 1: some entrail hanging out. It was easily immortal wound. But
15:04
Speaker 1: here in the article article they just said like he
15:07
Speaker 1: healed a few weeks later. It made it sound like
15:09
Speaker 1: he healed himself. He had like surgeries and I think
15:12
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, eight to ten weeks of recuperation.
15:15
Speaker 1: I don't think there was like any mystery to that,
15:17
Speaker 1: but they did manage to save his life. Um. But
15:19
Speaker 1: he wasn't the same after that. He became an opium
15:22
Speaker 1: user and the daughter UM was one that was just
15:25
Speaker 1: like it was just different after that. That sucks. He
15:28
Speaker 1: had bad like stomach problems um, which we'll get too later.
15:31
Speaker 1: Actually that that'll play a role. See, there's one other
15:35
Speaker 1: aspect of respute, and that I kind of gathered about
15:37
Speaker 1: him from researching him, and that was like he had
15:41
Speaker 1: this um, he had this thing he had. He had
15:47
Speaker 1: kind of a light, he had an exuberance, He he
15:50
Speaker 1: loved life. He UM. He didn't seem to be a
15:55
Speaker 1: even though he's been accused of all sorts of manner
15:56
Speaker 1: of crimes. We don't really know what he did or
15:58
Speaker 1: didn't do back then because again contemporary sources are like
16:02
Speaker 1: is he the devil? But he seemed to have something
16:05
Speaker 1: that was really neat about him, Like he was somebody
16:08
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people wanted to be around.
16:11
Speaker 1: And the idea that like that went out of his
16:15
Speaker 1: stomach wound. Let's say it is not as sad as
16:18
Speaker 1: what ultimately happens to him, but but let's keep going,
16:21
Speaker 1: all right, What ultimately happened is a plot was hatched
16:24
Speaker 1: and we'll get to the the newer, possibly truer story.
16:29
Speaker 1: But here's the original story. Prince Felix yusup Off. He
16:33
Speaker 1: was the the husband of the niece of the Czar
16:36
Speaker 1: Nicholas on December. He was also the gay lover of
16:43
Speaker 1: the person who was also an heir to the throne
16:47
Speaker 1: if Alexei didn't make it who the Brits favored. So
16:51
Speaker 1: he was married to the niece and the gay lover
16:52
Speaker 1: of Yeah, he had both his basis cover basic exactly
16:56
Speaker 1: look good for him. En, that's pretty you know, forward thinking. Sure, so,
17:02
Speaker 1: uh he plotted to we're all going to evolve into
17:05
Speaker 1: bisexual maybe he uh he plotted to kill Respute and
17:10
Speaker 1: to save Russia. And here's where things really like. The
17:13
Speaker 1: details of how this went down are really highly disputed
17:15
Speaker 1: this day. Um. Supposedly, yeah, supposedly he invited him over
17:21
Speaker 1: said hey, uh, come take a look at my wife.
17:23
Speaker 1: He'd like her. I also read that he said we
17:26
Speaker 1: got a gypsy wine party going on over here, and
17:28
Speaker 1: recipuinges like I'm there. Well, here's here's the deal. Though.
17:31
Speaker 1: He gets there. He he laces pastries and cakes and
17:35
Speaker 1: wine with cyanide enough to kill like five men supposedly
17:38
Speaker 1: respute and starts chowing down, nothing happens. The daughter disputes
17:43
Speaker 1: this and said he would not. He had bad stomach
17:45
Speaker 1: problems after his stabbing incident, and he didn't drink wine
17:50
Speaker 1: or eat sweets anymore. That's what she said, Well, that
17:53
Speaker 1: explains it. Later finding that's what she said, Um, it
17:57
Speaker 1: does explain later filling perhaps, but he hyper acidity in
18:00
Speaker 1: the stomach, and she's like, he just wouldn't have been
18:02
Speaker 1: doing that, or possibly he was immune. That was another theory,
18:07
Speaker 1: which I think is bunk, that he had taken part
18:10
Speaker 1: of mithridoticism, which is like slowly building up your immunity
18:15
Speaker 1: to poison by ingesting small amounts of poison. I've been
18:18
Speaker 1: doing that for years, I'm sure yea oh is that why? Okay? Um?
18:23
Speaker 1: Or maybe they said have a theory that the cyanide
18:26
Speaker 1: might have vaporized when they baked the stuff in cakes.
18:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the high temperatures. But at any rate, the
18:32
Speaker 1: poison had no effect on him, and they were like,
18:34
Speaker 1: what is going on with this creep? Like he could
18:36
Speaker 1: have killed ten men with the stuff or an ox
18:39
Speaker 1: used to POV later said really so, they said, I
18:42
Speaker 1: don't know what we'll do. Let's just shoot him in
18:44
Speaker 1: the back, easy peasy, easy peasy, and uh he did
18:49
Speaker 1: so he fell down and died. That they fought. He
18:53
Speaker 1: checked his pulse first, they went upstairs and partied. Well,
18:56
Speaker 1: they checked him out and then like he's dead, let's
18:59
Speaker 1: go part And then he came back down I think
19:02
Speaker 1: to get a coat or something and checked him again
19:05
Speaker 1: to get I think that's what the story, how the
19:08
Speaker 1: story goes really Yeah, and um, that's when resputants just
19:12
Speaker 1: like he comes alive and like attacks the guy after
19:15
Speaker 1: they shot him twice in the back, right, I think
19:18
Speaker 1: at least once two times at that point, I think
19:21
Speaker 1: so they ended up being four total, with one in
19:24
Speaker 1: the forehead, which we'll get to his Well, Okay, so
19:27
Speaker 1: they shot him once and then they came back downstairs
19:30
Speaker 1: and he's still moving. Not only not only is he
19:33
Speaker 1: still alive, he manages to get to his feet and
19:36
Speaker 1: bust out the door and out into the yard, out
19:38
Speaker 1: into Eusten POV's yard. And that's when they shot him twice, yeah,
19:42
Speaker 1: and beat him like severely. There's pictures of his body
19:47
Speaker 1: like he was severely beaten with a rubber club. Um,
19:51
Speaker 1: tied him in a blanket, dumped his body in the
19:54
Speaker 1: Neva River. So let's go over this again. Shot in
19:56
Speaker 1: the back. Once he gets up, goes outside. They shoot
19:58
Speaker 1: him two more times. They beat him with the club,
20:01
Speaker 1: They wrap him up in a blanket. Somebody shot him
20:03
Speaker 1: in the forehead too. There was a fourth shot. Okay,
20:05
Speaker 1: shot him in the forehead, wrap up in a blanket,
20:08
Speaker 1: drop him into a frozen river that they've carved a
20:10
Speaker 1: hole into, and then that's that for resputin. That's that
20:15
Speaker 1: until they find him. And they found him and his
20:18
Speaker 1: arm was outstretched like he'd managed to struggle free of
20:22
Speaker 1: the blanket, right, he managed to partially free himself, indicating
20:26
Speaker 1: that maybe he wasn't even dead when they put him
20:27
Speaker 1: in the water. So they did an autopsy on him.
20:29
Speaker 1: In the autopsy lists resputants mode of death as hypothermia,
20:36
Speaker 1: not not not being shot four times, not being beaten
20:40
Speaker 1: to death, including the forehead shot, which they all manner
20:43
Speaker 1: of like evidence says that this is was a kill
20:46
Speaker 1: shot by a professional. Yeah, but supposedly he died of hypothermia,
20:51
Speaker 1: and thens seriously they didn't, although now that you've explained it,
20:54
Speaker 1: not so mysteriously they didn't find arsenic in his system,
20:58
Speaker 1: but that until I guess recently, I think as cyanide.
21:01
Speaker 1: Cyanide okay um was a that was a big point
21:04
Speaker 1: of lore, like he ate all this stuff, this paste,
21:07
Speaker 1: this cyanide laced pastry, and like it didn't even show
21:11
Speaker 1: up in a system. Well, it sounds like it didn't
21:13
Speaker 1: show up in a system because he didn't actually eat
21:15
Speaker 1: that stuff. And we have great cause to wonder if
21:19
Speaker 1: he was beaten. Was he Yeah, he was beaten? Okay,
21:23
Speaker 1: so he was shot four times and I guess he
21:25
Speaker 1: was dumped in the river. But what's in dispute then him? Yeah?
21:31
Speaker 1: Who shot him? And what was the actual cause of death?
21:34
Speaker 1: Did he really free his arm or was that just
21:37
Speaker 1: something that you know that happened? Like what was the
21:39
Speaker 1: cause of death? And did they cut his penis? Well,
21:42
Speaker 1: that's a big one to supposedly, man, all these double
21:49
Speaker 1: I apologize, there's another one I haven't. I haven't met
21:51
Speaker 1: a single. Oh my god, I just needed to stop.
21:55
Speaker 1: So supposedly they may have uh cut his penis off
21:59
Speaker 1: and it is changed hands throughout the year, maybe even
22:04
Speaker 1: belonging to a French collector who loaned it to a
22:06
Speaker 1: Russian museum to put on display for a little while.
22:09
Speaker 1: There are pictures, um, and we just don't know if
22:13
Speaker 1: that's it or not. If it is, it's ginormous good,
22:17
Speaker 1: good for resputing, so much so that um apparently by
22:20
Speaker 1: no one's actually tested it, but just looking at it,
22:24
Speaker 1: some biologists feeling like that's a horse, that's from a
22:27
Speaker 1: horse or a cow. Yeah, or as you said earlier,
22:31
Speaker 1: it looked like a baby's arm holding an orange, And
22:34
Speaker 1: I think so we don't know if that's his penis
22:37
Speaker 1: or not. It's definitely adds another little strange sidebar to
22:40
Speaker 1: the story. It definitely does. You know. Also we should
22:43
Speaker 1: say that after he was buried in the Bolsheviks revolted. Um,
22:47
Speaker 1: they dug him up and burned his body. Oh yeah,
22:51
Speaker 1: because I don't think I knew that. We should say
22:52
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks did revolt. The Czar abdicated the crown in
22:57
Speaker 1: March of I think nineteen seven, and team and then
23:01
Speaker 1: the revolution happened. They were placed under house arrest, and
23:04
Speaker 1: then very famously, the entire roman Off family, their doctor,
23:09
Speaker 1: two servants in the family dog were all executed by
23:12
Speaker 1: Bolshevik revolutionaries, including Anastasia. Yeah, and and resput and had
23:17
Speaker 1: had predicted that as along with his own demise before
23:20
Speaker 1: he died, writing if it was one of your relations
23:23
Speaker 1: who have wrought my death, then no one in the family,
23:27
Speaker 1: none of your relations, will remain alive for more than
23:31
Speaker 1: two years. That was my resputing and that's what happened.
23:34
Speaker 1: I mean, like the he was killed in uh December
23:38
Speaker 1: the end of nineteen sixteen. They were killed before the
23:40
Speaker 1: end of nineteen eighteen, so he was right. And apparently
23:43
Speaker 1: he had also written that he didn't expect to make
23:45
Speaker 1: it to January one. He was killed two days before it. Yeah,
23:49
Speaker 1: there were disputes about the date too, but I think
23:51
Speaker 1: they settled on December. So what's up with the weirdness now? Well,
23:57
Speaker 1: they've dug into this more recently. The two thousands Scotland
24:01
Speaker 1: Yard has a detective named Richard Cullen and a historian
24:05
Speaker 1: named Andrew Cook, and they have a theory that I
24:07
Speaker 1: think it's probably true that it was the s I S.
24:10
Speaker 1: A British secret service, actually led the plot to kill
24:14
Speaker 1: him uh and modern forensics believe they have tied the
24:20
Speaker 1: gun in the caliber of the bullet in the forehead
24:22
Speaker 1: was different than the other three, and so they have
24:25
Speaker 1: tied that back because it was not a rare gun,
24:27
Speaker 1: but rare enough to where they tied it back to
24:30
Speaker 1: this guy, Um Oswald Brainer Oswald Rainer, who was a
24:34
Speaker 1: British officer who was there. He was there. He was
24:37
Speaker 1: also a friend of Yusupov and while he's not named
24:41
Speaker 1: in Usupav's memoirs about the murder of reciputant Us boasted
24:45
Speaker 1: about frequently. Um, he does appear suddenly in that same time,
24:52
Speaker 1: so he's in the city. And Yeah, a lot of
24:57
Speaker 1: well a retired Scotland yard detective and an historian both
25:00
Speaker 1: think that that he's the one who carried out the
25:03
Speaker 1: kill shot. Yeah, and Rayner actually supposedly told his cousin
25:07
Speaker 1: that he was there and that he was the guy
25:10
Speaker 1: that did the deed. But Um, before he died n one,
25:14
Speaker 1: he burned all his papers and he only had one son,
25:16
Speaker 1: and he died just a few years later, so all
25:19
Speaker 1: evidence is gone except for a memo. Uh. A memo
25:25
Speaker 1: was sent between rayner superiors Um, John Scale and Stephen Ali,
25:31
Speaker 1: who weren't there at the time, and the memo says
25:33
Speaker 1: this quote. Although matters have not proceeded entirely to plan,
25:38
Speaker 1: which you know, that's pretty true. Our objective has clearly
25:42
Speaker 1: been achieved. Reaction to the demise of Dark Forces, which
25:45
Speaker 1: was Resputant's code name, have been well received by all,
25:48
Speaker 1: although a few awkward questions have already been asked about
25:51
Speaker 1: wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends, will no
25:55
Speaker 1: doubt brief you on your return. So it sounds pretty
26:00
Speaker 1: rock solid to me that the s I S was
26:02
Speaker 1: might have been behind it, right, so there was another
26:06
Speaker 1: conspiracy that's actually probably just a broader look at that
26:09
Speaker 1: that um it was actually the Prime Minister of Great Britain,
26:13
Speaker 1: David Lloyd George, who was ultimately behind this plot to
26:17
Speaker 1: murder Resputin and install Uspav's gay lover the Prince. And
26:23
Speaker 1: the whole reason for either of these theories, the whole
26:26
Speaker 1: reason that Brits would want to get involved in the
26:27
Speaker 1: first place, was because they were worried that either one
26:30
Speaker 1: Resputin was going to persuade Nicholas to withdraw from the war,
26:34
Speaker 1: or he was going to continue undermining the credibility of
26:38
Speaker 1: the Romano so much that there was a revolution, and
26:42
Speaker 1: either way Russia was gonna withdraw from the war, which
26:45
Speaker 1: is a big problem because they were keeping Germany busy
26:47
Speaker 1: on the Western Front, which meant that Germany was divided
26:50
Speaker 1: between the Western Front with Russia and the Eastern Front
26:53
Speaker 1: with the Brits. It was so if Russia pulled out,
26:57
Speaker 1: then Germany could put all of their attention on the
27:00
Speaker 1: Western Front. Yes, I get that, Quiet I got him
27:03
Speaker 1: wrong in the first time. I got him backwards, but
27:06
Speaker 1: you corrected yourself, thank you. Yeah. So, um, maybe so
27:10
Speaker 1: maybe Britain, And you know it makes sense if it
27:11
Speaker 1: was s I s it might have gone all the
27:13
Speaker 1: way to the top the Prime minister. Yeah, it's true,
27:15
Speaker 1: you know. So it's resputing. That's everything there is to
27:18
Speaker 1: know about him, and completely factual, every word of him. Yes, Resputin.
27:24
Speaker 1: Well let's see if you want to learn more about
27:26
Speaker 1: rescput and you can type his name into the search
27:28
Speaker 1: bart how stuff works dot com. That is capital r
27:31
Speaker 1: A S p U t I n rest Sputin sins
27:34
Speaker 1: I said resciput, And that means it's time for message break.
27:43
Speaker 1: I know it's time for listening. Mail Josh is a
27:47
Speaker 1: very special listener mail uh because the Petris Jerry. Oh
27:51
Speaker 1: they this wasn't even to us, you know, and it's
27:55
Speaker 1: just like, forget you, guys, this is for Jerry. So uh,
27:59
Speaker 1: here's it goes. I've been listening to your show from
28:01
Speaker 1: the very beginning, guys, and I have never missed an episode.
28:04
Speaker 1: I listened to about fifteen podcasts on a regular basis,
28:07
Speaker 1: and listening to those other podcasts makes me truly appreciate
28:09
Speaker 1: the job that Jerry does on your show. While listening
28:12
Speaker 1: to other shows, I often hear pieces that were intended
28:14
Speaker 1: to be edited out, but obviously we're not. This is
28:17
Speaker 1: something that is extremely distracting to me. What usually happens
28:21
Speaker 1: is one of the host starts of sentence doesn't come
28:23
Speaker 1: out right, so they go back and start that sentence
28:25
Speaker 1: over again. It's not done in a very natural way,
28:27
Speaker 1: and it drives me crazy, kind of like finding an
28:29
Speaker 1: obvious typo in a book. Boy, I hate that too.
28:32
Speaker 1: When this happens, it takes away from the conversation aspect
28:35
Speaker 1: of the podcast and emphasizes the fact that there's an
28:37
Speaker 1: outline for these conversations. Well, I cannot guarantee that has
28:41
Speaker 1: never happened in your show. I can't think of one
28:44
Speaker 1: time where something was obviously supposed to be edited out
28:47
Speaker 1: but was not right. Yeah, the production of your show
28:51
Speaker 1: is so good. It feels like you did the podcast
28:53
Speaker 1: in one continuous take without any edits. That is not true.
28:57
Speaker 1: By the way, We're not that good. We don't stop
29:01
Speaker 1: and start a lot. It happens mistakes. Yeah, but we're
29:04
Speaker 1: pretty conversation. Sometimes we say things that we know we
29:06
Speaker 1: can't include. Uh, it feels like you do the podcast
29:09
Speaker 1: in one take without any edits. There is much more.
29:12
Speaker 1: This is much more entertaining because it feels more like
29:14
Speaker 1: an organic conversation and it planned out discussion. Obviously, you
29:17
Speaker 1: guys planning your podcast with outlines and points you want
29:20
Speaker 1: to touch on. Not true. No, No, that is not true,
29:23
Speaker 1: and that goes to Jerry's powers and skills. That's right
29:28
Speaker 1: that that guy thinks that. Yeah, for those of you
29:30
Speaker 1: who don't know, I feel like we said at a
29:32
Speaker 1: gazillion times and interviews, but not everyone reads that stuff.
29:35
Speaker 1: We have our first conversation about the topic right here
29:39
Speaker 1: in the studio. We study independently, then we come down,
29:43
Speaker 1: sit down, and we have our first conversation about it.
29:46
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are starts and stops, and Jerry takes care
29:49
Speaker 1: of that alright. Finishing up here. Um, it seems more
29:54
Speaker 1: natural in your podcast than any others that I listened to.
29:57
Speaker 1: So I just want to thank you guys for many
29:59
Speaker 1: hours of entertainment, and thank you especially to Jerry. She
30:02
Speaker 1: needs a raise, even if it comes out of your pockets.
30:05
Speaker 1: I agree that she needs a raise, not out of
30:07
Speaker 1: our podet, but not out of the pockets. And that
30:09
Speaker 1: is from Spencer M. Couch of Couch Law, and I
30:13
Speaker 1: was like, can I met your law firm? And he
30:14
Speaker 1: was like, please do. Yeah. So that is Couch Law
30:18
Speaker 1: in Bountiful, Utah for all your maritime law needs. Not
30:23
Speaker 1: in Bountable you call Couch Law. I'm not sure what
30:25
Speaker 1: kind of low of practices, but if you are in Bountiful,
30:28
Speaker 1: Utah and you're in need of a lawyer, give him
30:30
Speaker 1: a call and say, hey, you've got good taste and
30:32
Speaker 1: you appreciate the fine work of Hope Jerry. So here's
30:37
Speaker 1: four right, And if you are in need of a
30:40
Speaker 1: world class podcast editor, you have to keep looking because
30:43
Speaker 1: Jerry's ours. That's right. Yeah, thank you Jerry, Thank you Jerry.
30:47
Speaker 1: All right, she just saluted it. If you want to
30:51
Speaker 1: sing Jerry's praises, we love hearing that kind of thing. Jerry, Oh,
30:56
Speaker 1: is it no, I'm just okay. You can tweet to
30:58
Speaker 1: us at s y s K pod Cast. You can
31:00
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
31:03
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
31:07
Speaker 1: disc very dot com. Right, yeah, Jerry gets those two.
31:11
Speaker 1: And you can join us on our home on the web,
31:14
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
31:23
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
31:25
Speaker 1: dot com