Morbid Mondays - Episode 33 - Rasputin

In this episode Katy answers some questions about the "mad monk" Rasputin! Like was he, in fact, the lover of the Russian Queen? 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Greetings. What's up?

SPEAKER_02 0:04

What's up?

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Taking it all the way back to like 2001.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Alright. They're redoing that.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Really? Huh.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Yeah. With all the same people.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Yeah, it's not it's not like a shitty remake of a cultural touchstone comedy movie. But like all new.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

I don't know if it's good or not. I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I can tentatively accept that. Okay. Welcome to, or welcome back to Morbid Mondays, your unhinged source for what the fuck moments throughout history, where we will take turns giving you a weekly tour through all of the gross, gory, and downright weird moments in history. We're your hosts. I'm Katie.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I'm Brian.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Alright. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Hey, before we get in super hard to it, I have an announcement. Because I always do this whenever somebody uh subscribes to the YouTube channel. We have Nancy Beck is a new subscriber.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

And also I must apologize because I had a thing that happened with loading the website with new audio last week, and it did not do that. I looked at it yesterday as I was loading uh the stuff back on, and we had zero had zero on one of them. I was like, oh, our channel died, and then I looked at it and was like, nope, just not published. I was like, okay, you did that for no reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Oops.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Fucking oops.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

So today there's like three new things on there.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yay! Smack, smack, smack.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

All for you, Nancy Beck. All for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So we've been all over the place with like the pre-show and just our general conversation. Today has been. Today has been. My week has been just like something straight out of like one of those torture fanfics. Which is probably why my YouTube algorithm, uh there was a tie-in to all of it. Look at me. Look at me being all on task and shit. Which is probably why my YouTube algorithm figured out that I like, you know, once I was like, I need Kingdom Hearts, I need Final Fantasy VII, I need soft, fluffy, squishy Minecraft things. I am going through it. And then my YouTube, my YouTube algorithm decided, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need your comfort history shit.

SPEAKER_06 2:29

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Here's all. Ooh. That mic just blew out. It's just a straight black line across the recording.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Listen, I had to get the emphasis out. Here's all of Romanov, Russia.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Oh, oh shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

So because I I am I am millennial, I am rose gold millennial trash. I broke Brian.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Wow. Come back, bro. I've heard of Millennial Gray, but the rose gold one I understood immediately.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Because of the iPods and the Apple products and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

You commented on it the last time you were at my house. You thought you saw my PS4 controller and that bitch is rose gold. It matches my fucking earbuds. 90% of my phone accessories. The only reason my fucking mag thing isn't rose gold is because I can't find one.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

It's like the only color that they gave us for a little while that wasn't just silver or white. And I was like, that's kind of boring. Like, what's good?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

So yeah, I am, I am, I am rose gold millennial trash, which means that DreamWorks is one of my like cinematically defining memories. And DreamWorks did a movie called Anastasia.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Like one of their first ones.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, and it was so good. The animation was revolutionary. The story that it brought, like to non-history dorks like me, brought the story of revolution era Russia to people that knew nothing about it. And it gave it this the music, peak. The animation, perfect. The characters, flawless. I feel like I'm doing that. The front, the side, the back. I feel like I'm doing that. I don't mean to. A little too much time on social media this weekend. Don't worry, I'll be back to normal soon. So the story of Anastasia is one that I have been aware of since, you know, 1998 when the movie came out, and everyone was obsessed with it. And that was when I actually that was wow. That was actually when I began my sewing journey.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Really?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yes, because I was so in love with like the the Imperial Russia costumes. And like, and not just the hero dress at the end, but like the the little like caftan thing that she's wearing in the ballroom as like a very small child, and it's got all of the it's got that high collar with the embellishing. Anyway, I I am anyway.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Costuming bug, first bite, huh?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, and that way that was when I was like, I want to make all I want, I want that. I can't find that, I can't buy that, I can't make my parents buy that. I I'm gonna have to make it, and thus began the journey. So the story of Anastasia is one that I have been aware of for a very, very, very long time. And then briefly in like the early 2000s, there was this Have we found Princess Anastasia? Because there was that one lady in like Massachusetts that was claiming to be Anastasia.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah. Even though she would have been so old.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

She was.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Uh but mind you, all of this happened in like 1915, 1916, 1917, somewhere around in there.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

It was it was very, very early. So so it was it was plausible.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Right. The last the last thing we know of her was during the like Bolshevik Revolution.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Correct. Good job. 1918.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

In a basement. Yes. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Which I have recently learned that there is no possible way that that lady ever would have been Anastasia because they found Anastasia's body.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

She died with her family.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

They 100% made sure that happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

So this this is this has been in my in my wheelhouse for a while. And if you'll recall, on one of our very, very, very early episodes, it was suggested to us by my partner, actually, that we do an episode on Rasputin.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So welcome to the Rasputin episode. Told you all of that to tell you this.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

So I am severely interested in this person because he he is he is so all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

He is so historically vilified.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Like, like even looking at pictures of this dude, okay, like this is this this is my deep dive, okay? My deep dive began on began on Saturday when my whole everything turned upside down. So just me in a hospital Googling on my phone, taking like short notes and shit. Uh I was not the one in the hospital.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Let me let me just not that kind of author's curse.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

No, no. It happened within my family. It did not happen to me directly, but I was in fact responsible for the person that it did happen to. Anyway, moving on. So just doing short research, deep diving, trying to find everything that I could, because the what I know of Rasputin, I recognize is largely urban legend.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Or like, cause because he was he he was vilified by so much of history.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

He's a weird character. There it's weird. Like the stuff about Rasputin that is bad is not the stuff that people talk about.

unknown 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Like the the Like a lot of people make fun of how he looks because all of the pictures that we have of him, yeah, like all of the all of the all of the images of Rasputin that you have ever seen, he looks very severe, very austere. Like he's got this like thousand-yard stare staring straight through you in these black and white pictures. And he he looks very much like what you would ex like what you would expect a villain to look like, especially if you've grown up on the 1998 Anastasia movie where he is the like where he's a like a ghoul lich.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah, yeah. But it the thing is he just looks like an orthodox priest.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

He's in all black with a long beard and a hat. It's like it's a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

And he looks a little greasy and you know, he which was not unusual for the time.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Right. I mean he was born in the middle of nowhere. I mean correct. Yeah. Siberia. He's such a he's such an interesting guy to me though, because like 1840 something. His name has the kind of weight to it that Gregory Rasputin. Yeah, that like Vlad Dracula has. It's like you hear it and you're just like Napoleon or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Dude, his name also has like a really unfortunate translation.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah. Who the Resputin. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

So it's the direct translation to it. I'm gonna look it up really quick so I don't so I make sure I don't lie to you. The direct translation of his last name is the debauched one.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Oh, crazy. So was that his actual name, or is that something people gave him? No. Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

He was born into the Resputin name. Like that that was his name. First name Gregory, last name Resputin.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

That's wild.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

He had siblings, he had a mother, he had a father. I feel like I'm starting wicked.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Um like all of us.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

But like he had a mother, he had a father. I was raised by Kristen Shenowith.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

But like in Siberia during the time of the boyer system, right? So he's like poor, poor, poor.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

He is a peasant peasant.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So I would I would give you the rundown on like what the fuck's happening in Russia at this time. He he was 47 when he died. So he had some time. He didn't have a lot of time to clean up. Not a lot, but he had some time. But he's a peasant living out in Siberia. He grew up in a town where there was a church and there was a tavern and that was it.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah, your your life in Siberia at that time was find enough things to kill to eat, grow enough to eat, and gather wood.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

And probably make a lot of interesting cord or wood art.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So I did, in fact, write the phonetic of the name of the village that he's from, which is uh Porsrovia. I I struggle with Russian words. Okay. From all accounts, from people that actually knew him, actually met him, his personality, like who he was, matches not at all with any of the actual photographs we have of him. Like you look at this dude in the photograph and you're like, ooh, chills.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

He looks like he would talk like Count Dooku.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Apparently, he was very warm, very inviting, very charismatic. He laughed and smiled a lot. The exact opposite of what he looks like in all of those pictures.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Like I'm expecting that man in the pictures to like throw holy water at me and like pray over me violently.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

In that like John Brown kind of way where he just looks severe all the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

But no, apparently he was a bro.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah. Well, he, yeah, as far as I'm aware, um a lot of his stuff in in like it's kind of weird that we vilify Rest Butin, but we never really talk about Nicholas.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

And Nicholas was kind of a moron. Like he was aggressively gullible.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And I learned that, like, okay, so you you, I know you probably know this, but like uh Russia at this point in the 19 teens has kind of this like parliament-esque thing called the Duma.

SPEAKER_06 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Nicholas fought tooth and nail to not have that. He wanted to keep the uh what is it, autocracy?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, he he was trying to make himself modern, right? He had a cousin that was uh he was roughly related to many of the autocrats of Europe, where they have a principality or they have a kingdom where they are just the king.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

He was the czar and he wanted to be the czar, the end all be all. Like he wanted all of the power, and eventually in 1905, he did get bullied into uh basically letting the Duma exist.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Because they they were under what was called the Boyer system, and all of Russian at that time and before, a lot of the Russian ways of doing things are kind of based on Rome a little bit. Yeah. Which is why like czar is Caesar. So like uh it's why it's spelled that way of C Z A R.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

It's see, I have seen it spelled about three different ways in all of the research that I've been doing. And I myself defaulted to the to the T.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of T-S-A-R or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

But it yeah, but I think it's mostly the phonetic.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, because it it's supposed to be like Kaiser.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Right? Like, so it's the it's just to hear Kaiser not think of Fallout. But it's like a bad thing to be, right? Like that most of them end up not great.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Nicholas Nicholas was a good I've said this before. Nicholas was a good man, he was a bad king.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Terrible. Like he would feel bad.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Uh and like and like made matters worse, and I hate to say this, it made matters worse because he loved his wife.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

That actually did not do him any favors.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Like Alexandra, poor thing, had like 18 different kinds of anxiety on top of being like the epitome of I God, I feel so mean saying this, but being the epitome of like useless noblewoman.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yes. Like No, they were both so damn gullible. Like any con man that came across them, they were just like, oh, they must be.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

And boy howdy, did they get hit with them? A lot. Now, granted, one of them seemed to do a little bit of a little bit of good for them, and that was uh, oh god, I can't remember his name now.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

The yeah, the guy before Rasputin.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah. Yeah. I can't, I cannot for the life of me remember his name. But he he seemed to like be genuine in trying to help them out. And like dressed right.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I remember this guy because he was like a prophet of sorts.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Except for what he did was he said, like, yes, if you lower the taxes for the for the farming class, your kingdom will turn out well and people will like you. It was all just like basic political advice. Bro, like like You just wasn't an idiot.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

There was I watched um I watched a couple of great big long like historical things on like Romanov Russia. Like one of them was like two and a half hours long, and it was phenomenal. It was so good. I enjoyed every second of it. Uh, but yeah, they they went off at length about this guy because he was like super at this point in history, I know we're gonna get to ro we're gonna get to Resputin, I promise. We'll we'll get there. At this point in history, Nicholas and Alexandra have four daughters, and they're and they are catastrophically in love with each other, which is saying something because finding a royal love match is like unheard of. Like it's happened like five like five times in in out throughout all of history.

unknown 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

All of history.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

By all accounts, he didn't even really like cheat and stuff that much. I mean, like, that's crazy for a person of his stature. Scatcher, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And so he was like, he he was down bad for his wife, which I mean, props to you, my guy. Yeah. But I also need you to run your country. Oops. But they had four daughters, and they were like hurting for a male heir because at this point, in in history, like he cannot pass his throne or titles to any of the girls. Never mind that Alexandra like half of Alexandra's family is English, and Queen Victoria is her like either grandmother or aunt or something. Like, she's virtually English.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Yeah, because she's like of some relation to like some of the Prussian kings and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, yeah, when when Alexandra got to Russia, she didn't speak Russian. There are beautiful photos of their wedding. Anyway, no, no, no. Focus. This dude shows up and he's super interested in like how conception and procreation and like you know genetics and shit work. And Alexandra catches pregnant, and he's like, okay, according to all of the tests and all of the numbers, I think it's a boy. And the royal family is super excited, and it just so happens that he's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

So he's he's going off of like old school like according to the kind of year and falling of tea leaves or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Granted, this man had a 50-50 shot.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah, yeah. Strangely enough, less for most of humans, actually. But but also that he's he's probably looking at like early anatomical and medical books, going like, well I think he wrote one. Yeah, these like the the like if they burp a lot, they have hairs. That's wild. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

I can't.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Whatever that guy's name is.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

But he he was he was basically the woo advisor before they met Resputin. Um, but he gets booted out because the the Duma is like, too much power. We don't like this guy, make him leave. Nicholas is like, Alright, man, it's been fun. I appreciate you. They're making me make you leave. My mom is making me send you home.

SPEAKER_05 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Um, basically. And so he takes off. And like, weirdly, like, right as he's leaving, Alexandra has just had the baby. She is a bundle of anxiety, probably some postpartum depression. This woman had issues, and I'm very sorry. Uh, but like, she's like freaking out because he's leaving, and he's like, Don't worry, you will find someone to help you when I'm gone. Ooh, he makes like this weird self-fulfilling prophecy.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Right, because yeah, you're look and you're gonna find somebody.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah, like there's no and so he leaves, he scoots off. So let's jump backwards a bit. Not much, not much, because I'm gonna paraphrase and I'm gonna gloss just to like consolidate time. But Rasputin, his early life, historians I love that they say this, but historians call it a black hole because we don't know a lot about his early life because he grew up in the middle of BFE Russia.

SPEAKER_05 18:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Which I should have said BFR. Siberia.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Uh, and so there's not a whole there's not a whole lot out there. There's not a lot to do. Like there is religion and there is drinking. Huzzah! And there is a speculation that he may have like shown a propensity to have an issue with authority pretty early in life, because there's lots and lots and lots of rumors that say that one of the reasons that he began his sort of like meandering religious walkabout uh was because he was in a little bit of trouble with the law. There's some conflict about that because we have no solid records that say either he stole a horse or you know he mouthed off to a noble or he he got into any sort of like minor transgression that landed him in trouble. We don't know but uh the beyond like just rumors. A young Rasputin, a young Gregory, let's call him Gregory. I may even call him Greg at some point. Because like from everything I read about this guy, he wasn't really that bad.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

For you to be a con man and not be likable.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Right? Either you're going to be like a crazy mystic, which is always how he's shown, but that's not even like uncommon in his day. Yeah, like um well, you also have to remember this. Blavatsky is gonna do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

This is this is the early 1900s, what was super popular in the early 1900s.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Like a mystic yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

All the all the talk to the that's what uh Helena, Helena Bla Blavatsky is gonna come through doing saying I read about her while I was doing this research, and then I found out that she's in one of the books that sits on my desk that's just full of historical and I'm like, so you've been sitting here the whole time. I really should read them like all the way through instead of like, you know, just henpeck through it. But here we are. So our boy Greg never really got a formal education, like as a child, like as as we would expect, even like us public school. Yay!

SPEAKER_06 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

He didn't really get that. In fact, he spent the majority of his life illiterate.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Which is crazy. But I mean that's considering, but it wasn't unusual.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

That's what a public education would have even got you in that day, is just like basic arithmetic and reading.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

And that's about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So, and like it is said, and like I said, his early life is largely considered kind of a black hole of we don't know, uh, beyond rumors and such, but it is said, and like one of these rumors, is that he showed a very a propensity to be very like charismatic and magnetic really early on, up to and including kind of being rumored to have a bit of a second sight.

SPEAKER_06 20:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Which just kind of which kind of tells me that he was just really observant.

SPEAKER_06 20:48

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Like, uh, well, what was that show with the guy that's just super observant, but he pr he touts himself as a psychic? Psych. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah, it was like where he's yeah, he just has a photographic memory and is like homesian.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I'm pretty sure that's that's what that's what was going on with with our boy Gregory. But he does wander a lot as a young man, right? And get this, this is something that I had no idea. He got married. He had a whole wife and kids. Like he went like four villages over, met a girl, and was like, this one, I'm keeping her. Russian huzzah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Um and then like eventually what screwed off somewhere and kind of.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

So here's what happens. So he got he got married, and he stays with his wife for ten years, right? Her name is Raskovia, is her name. Uh, and they would go on to have seven children.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah, seven children in ten years. Now, granted, only three of these make it to adulthood, but considering the time and the area, that's not unusual.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

That's wow. Holy shit. That I got into a conversation with somebody not that long ago about vaccines and my incredible frustration that people are so distrustful of my. Modern medicine, but the birth rate for most of human history is half of your kids die before adulthood.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Which is why everybody has so many fucking kids.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

There is there is a there is a a kind of an old wives tale that parents didn't bother to name their children until they were three or four.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

It's yeah. I mean, it's in Japan, you you see a lot of like a lot of anime names say Maru on the end. That's like one of those names that's like, let me give my kid a crap name so that like jealous ghosts don't come after them. Yeah. It's an old, like, it's an old traditional thing, and Maru basically means shit. So it's like you you have it on the back of a bunch of names of like don't give them a good name, the ghost will come after them.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Because they didn't know why disease worked in fucking 700 AD. They just knew that their kids died a lot. And like it's so common, but like seven kids. I didn't know he had one kid.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah, yeah. And oh, get this. One of them, one of his children, Maria, the daughter, will go on, like, after all of this is over, she will go on to move to LA here in the US and become a lion tamer.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

That's fucking wild.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Isn't that awesome?

SPEAKER_02 23:09

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, it's so cool. It's so awesome. And like, we'll we'll come back to Maria in a minute because like Maria had some stuff to say. Uh, but yeah, somewhere in there gets bit with the religious, like, specifically the religious bug, right? And he goes on this, he goes on this series of pilgrimages to like find religion. And his wife is like, Okay, I love you, have fun.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Um I'll be here starving in Siberia.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Well, that's the thing. He dude, he supports his wife and children his entire life. He never abandoned them ever.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Super uncommon for guys, super uncommon for like Jesus-y dudes. Yeah, that and just the wandering priests often become wondering because they get tired of their lives.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, and he's he supported his wife and children his entire life. Like he would, he brought, he brought his family to St. Petersburg at some point. Because he was like, You're my wife, you're my children, come here. I need you. Uh, yeah, I know, right? You're looking at me like I'm crazy.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Kind of dope, but all right, cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

I know, but he still he but some some of the rumors that you that you've heard about Rest Putin are true.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Yeah. Oh, I know that he like he liked to screw a lot. Yeah, that was a big thing with him.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

He wasn't, he he did in fact get around. He was a bit of a hoe.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

And like when somebody dude, this is so badass. When he when somebody confronted his wife with it, like brought his affairs to her attention, there's enough of him to go around. Ma'am! Whoa! Confident queen.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah. And as long as he swings by from time to time. That's crazy. But you know, sometimes you run into that in history as people who were just way more like yeah, open to things than you know what I mean? Like D DSM starts in like 1906 or something. Like people just sometimes they're not always super stuffy.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

There was a um there there was a French noble pair that were like that were super chill like that. He got around and she was like super chill with like his main mistress. Yeah. Like they were besties, and like would gang up on him occasionally when he was being a dick.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

This gotta be one of Louis. Has to be.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Probably. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

I'll I'll like Madame de Pompadour.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Madame de Pompadour, though.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Madame de Pompadour was in fact real chill with the Queen.

SPEAKER_06 25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Uh correct your husband. Correct your lover.

SPEAKER_06 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

This is not my problem. I want to be in that salon.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Dimly lit, all like fucking piss-smelling orange trees everywhere. Shh.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Let me live in my my Hollywood fantasy.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Anyway, uh, we're talking about Resputin. Yeah. Talking about the early days of Resputin. So he finds this um monastery. And like something, oh God, I can't believe I'm about to say this. Something about this monastery rings his bell.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Yeah. 12 times at noon.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

He's so like he finds what he's looking for here. In like, and there's rumors that he spoke to like one of these, one of the elders within the monastery, but that like it also could have been like a wandering, homeless dude who just happened to be kind of like enlightened. I don't know. He he found something that he was like, yes, with here.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Duh. I am Buddha.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Maybe. No, his beard. Did his beard ever get that long? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

It got real long.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

It got real long. He got real greasy there for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

So he's having his like moment that many people have, which is that they talk to like many hyper-religious like people who will influence history, kind of have this moment where they meet someone on a road that's just kind of got it figured out. You know, like they say some really enlightening shit to him and it blows his mind.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, basically that's that's that's what happened. And he he he comes home from like this time at the monastery. He comes home back to his family because that that is his pattern. He goes back to his family. Like he goes back to his wife and his kids. There's photographs of him with his kids, and like, you know, the kids are all smiling and they look happy to see him. So and he's still very grim face, austere in these pictures, bro. Crack a smile. Please.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Uh maybe he just thought taking a photograph was like a serious thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I think that's what it was because in every single picture he's in, it's the same face, or it's a candid shot. And because I've seen a few of the candid shots of him where he'd like didn't know his picture was being taken, but his face is almost like there's there's a there's a three-quarter to profile shot of him that's that's kind of in high contrast, but he's looking down at something and he looks so peaceful.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah. It's probably that's probably a bit of it because like you see that in Western expansion photos, you know, like Civil War photos and all that around that time period, like the 1850s, is that or or really anywhere in the mid-1800s of people like presenting their arms, like so they they're holding their pistol and they've got a rifle next to them, and they're not smiling, they're very serious because they gotta stay still for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yes, I was just about to say photographs also used to take much longer than the click flash that we're used to.

SPEAKER_06 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Uh, but yeah, so he looks very austere and serious in every single picture that he's in, with the exception of like two. And even then, he's not really smiling, he's just like, I I'll I'll show you at the at the end of the show. Uh, because I was like, that's that's a really artsy shot. I also Is this real?

SPEAKER_02 28:58

I have a a suspicion as well about photographs of this time, and then I promise I'll stop talking. No, I have a suspicion, which is that the reliefs that people knew of on a common basis that you as a commoner could see, because they're not gonna be paintings, right? Paintings are for people's homes, wealthy people. But they're stained glass and they're statues. And in stained glass and statues, people are very serious looking, right? Like you have generals or kings that are holding their puffing their chest out like a few. Or religious figures, yeah. Right, and everybody kind of looks stoic all the time. Yeah. Unless it's like Mary, in which case she looks loving and all that stuff. She looks very soft, but everyone else is either suffering because it's religion, right? So it's like Jesus on a cross or something like that, or they're impassioned looking. So their eyes are very serious and their face is very like stony, and and I've always wondered how much when photo when photography first came around and was available to the common person um, because it's so much cheaper, how many people went, well, you gotta look like this.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Right? They're taking a portrait.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Like it would have been like photograph etiquette.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Yeah, that that would have been their understanding of what a person should look like on film.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

And then there's that one lady from like the ver the end of the Victorian era who's got the two teacups on her cleavage.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Grinning at the camera.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

And I I bet that's kind of what it is, is Fuck your austerity.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

I have giant tits.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Or the cat photos where they're on like a tux and shit. But I bet when it becomes so widely available that anyone can have it done cheaply, that's when you get the silly photograph. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

I I fucking love some of those candid photographs that are the oops photographs. Like there's the serious one, and then they'll show you the one that they accidentally got in the middle of it. And it's like the the married couple, and they're very serious and very, you know, hush. Yeah. And then like the second slide over is them like laughing and grinning with each other. That's the picture I want to see.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I want to see real people in history. Yeah. Gregory Resputon having like spilling tea and like freaking out about Well, we have some of his letters, and uh like like he got super, super close to the to the Roman off the Imperial family. Like they they called him our friend. Like that was his nickname within, I don't know, whatever that social circle would have been called. Yeah. But like when they when when Nicholas or Alexandra or even any of the kids, they always called him our friend. And like the kids would write him letters and he would write them back. And like we we have some of the letters, like to the kids and to Alexandra and to Nicholas, and he's very warm. Like he's he's like uncle-ish to like all of the letters from the kids. Like one of the princesses wrote him and was like complaining that somebody was being mean to her. And he writes back, it'll be okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Yeah. Like he well, because he's kind of the also like not only like their healer, right? But also they're kind of like spiritual advisor.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yes, that is that is exactly like how that's how he gets introduced to them as kind of like a what did I call it? But he basically he kind of becomes like a spiritual therapist.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Like to put it in modern terms, like he calms people's like like anxiety about spirituality and religion and all of that. Like he's never actually like a full-on like priest priest.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Right, but he's like father brown, like column.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

He's got he's got church backing. Like there are bishops and shit that are like, yeah, Gregor, Gregory R. Sputin, good guy. We like him. If ever he wants to take the cloth, let's go. And Risputin's like, but I like fucking.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Um Orthodox, well, I guess they don't they don't get around like he did. I think even if they marry, they don't get around like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

I honestly don't know. I I don't know enough about the religion, and I I tried very hard, like I was trying to streamline all of this so much because there this is like a 10 to 11 year period of like the rise of Resputin and then like his untimely assassination. Uh and it's like 11 years, and most of that he's chilling with the royal family, like he's he's playing games with the kids. Like he's he's telling Alexandra, please calm down. So we've please take a breath.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

He's so he's got he's got seven kids, he's in. He meets this old guy that's before I started talking and derailing you. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

No, you're good. We we do this to each other all the time.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Yeah, he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, he meets he meets this elder in in the monastery who apparently tells him exactly what he needs to hear, and like he's like, I am a changed man. And he comes home, and like here's the thing he comes home and he's like filled with this new religious fervor. Like he sings more, he prays harder, like he's godly.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Yeah. There's also in there. Uh he's over 9,000.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah, and he he gives up alcohol, uh, he stops eating meat. Uh oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

So he's like, he's all in.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Like and he decides that he needs to like, he needs to learn more about this like weird personal gospel that he is becoming. And so he he talks to his wife. He's like, I need to go learn more. And she's like, go on, shoo. Go have fun, baby. Pat, Pat. Shoo, I imagine. Because it it seems very much like he and his wife had a very good relationship.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

I could be entirely wrong. I could have read all of the wrong things or and listened and watched the wrong historical things. But from everything that I gleaned from this, he and his wife were chill.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

At the very least, she knew she wasn't gonna cage this guy at all.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah. And it wasn't, it wasn't particularly unusual for like monkish dudes to go on like these religious rambles until he comes into contact. I swear I can talk.

unknown 34:54

Can.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I promise.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

We both had a long week, and we're talking about a guy with like Well, we know how the story ends. Yeah. We're we're talking about a a crazy healer with a 12-inch 13.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah, it's well we'll get the dad at the end. But it makes sense why his wife said that.

SPEAKER_04 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

He comes he comes into contact with this sect, this interesting orthodox Russian Orthodox sect called the Klisty. Seems to be built on the extremes of like like the physical extremes.

SPEAKER_05 35:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

I don't know why I'm getting squidgy about this. Like, I I I write fan fiction.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah. I have no extremes what though?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Like we're talking about self-flagellation, um, and then like religious ecstasy to the point of orgy.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

And like there they are a lot. And there is there is a persisting rumor that he was one of them, but there's nothing confirmed. Like there's no there's no real evidence of it beyond that he came into contact with them. And then what would become his own sort of religious creed after this, his thing later would become like you have to sin, you have to sin so that you can experience redemption, so you can repent.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

And his thing was uh holy passionlessness. Sorry, I had to pause and look it up there for a second.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

That's a weird combination of suffixes.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Well, he he thought like his what would become his like uh thing that became like this weird pseudo not cult. Like it was culty, but it was not not a cult. Like he was never officially like he never had he wasn't interested in leading a group of religion, but he did have like he did have followers, he did have groupies. And it was the he thought, he he came to the conclusion that you are never closer to God except for when you are like exhausted of all of your passions. Which sounds legit until you realize, oh, you have to you you you must bang until you are all banged out.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Yeah, I was just like the only way to really do like I get where he's going with that.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

He's looking for that post-orgasmic like clarity moment. That's what I gleaned from that. And apparently I'm not entirely wrong.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Yeah, when I first heard it, I was thinking like in the lines of say like Buddhism, where like you lose your want, like Zen Buddhism.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Like the the goal is to kind of like lose your well, that is his goal, but he's he's talking about like that moment after you have lost the goal because you are fucked out.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Yeah, and in other in other traditions, it's just like you lose the impulse to seek those things. Yeah. And then you become like truly at peace because you're never like you don't have the constant urge of want. But he's like sin and then lose those urges.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

So that would that would become his thing.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

The ecstasy of Saint Agnes, but like multiplied every day.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Basically, yeah. Jesus Christ. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Well, alright. So he wants, yeah, so he wants to like bang, feel post-bang bliss, and then also instead of feeling guilty, he wants to feel like rap rapturous in the in the redemption.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Yeah, like that that's that was that was his thing. And he got quite the following for it. And hilariously, most of his followers chicks.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

No, I kinda get that.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Because that men are not taught to feel guilty as much as women are in religion.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

So like Yes. Yes. So by 1905, because remember, he was a young man in 18 in 1887, he was a young man just getting married.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

I just had a weird thought.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Resputiness Jared Leto.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

The eyes fit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

You just gotta let yourself go, man. I'm gonna look up his cult one day and do a whole episode on that because I have no idea what Jared Leto's cult is about.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I'm going off like physical. Uh so by 1905, he is making this splash because he's super charismatic and his his religious, I don't know what to call that creed, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

He's got a different theology that he's working with.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Theology, that's the word I'm working for. Uh, is is kind of appealing, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Like in its day, you can say, well, I mean, the sexual revolution in like the 60s and 70s had similar things around like Tantra coming into the Western consciousness for the first time. Well, I mean a lot of sex cults in the 60s, a lot of sex cults in the 20s here in America.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

This is 1905.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Yeah, we're we're yeah, we're we're actually coming up on the birth of like the telemma type stuff.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Really?

SPEAKER_02 39:46

When it first, yeah, Blavatsky has a little bit of this going on, and a lot of people do. Crowley had a lot of sex magic. Well, you know? So like we're we're coming into the time period of post-Victorian, we're not so austere.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah. Sex ain't so bad.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Uh so he's he's he's getting super popular. He's got a following, he has a not cult. Uh socially, he's climb like from a for a peasant, he's climbing into. Oh, by the way, that that monastery that he spent time in and like came out changed. We're pretty sure that's where he learned to read and write.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

That's what they do. So point one for Catholics, I could say that, over most of the Western world.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Reading and writing, basically, like a lot of the whole fall of Rome period, like all the way up into the Holy Roman Empire. If it was written down, it's because of them.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Came from a church, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Yeah, like that's that's it.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

So he's he's super popular, he's climbing social circles, he's still meandering, he's going walkabout, and I don't know how he's paying for stuff, but he's sending financial aid home to to his wife and kids. Like he he is taking care of his family while he's out doing that. Now, granted, his family is also taking care of his family.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Like, you know, there is a family unit that he that is there, but like he's he's yeah, he's probably pulling alms in, or why is this dude so vilified?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Well, we're coming up on it, I know. But like at this point in his life, he's he is less super scary, creepy, mad monk, and a little more frat bro.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

I said it. Yeah, he's kind of like the every every like to drink and he liked to fuck.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Every, every, like, if you're like me and you're kind of a leftist, you've all met that one like male feminist guy that's like kind of just there to talk to women, but he's saying all the right things. Yeah. Except for it feels like he is believing the thing.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah, I was gonna say, and he believes them.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

He's also there to like free dick.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Would you like some of this free dick?

SPEAKER_02 41:49

He's just saying that, like, yeah, that you're get dick and then also, but then throw yourself into, I assume with his personality, anyways, throw yourself into praying and seeking redemption with the same amount of fervor.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Fervor. Yes, you're exactly correct. I love that I don't have to explain this to you.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

I've no see there there's different religions that kind of do this around like Shintoism and certain types of Buddhism and and definitely in Hinduism.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Where people get into these praying like fits.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

And they're this and they're just like, the point is to kind of suffer while praying, but also feel ecstasy in doing it. And it's wild to watch.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, yes, yes, you are on the correct track with this. And so he is he's literally so popular, so well liked, so chill at this point that he has like he has several bishops and various priests that are all like, oh yeah, yeah, we know him, we like him, he he can come to the barbecue, um, or whatever the church equivalent is to that.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah. So he can come to the cloister. No, keep him away from the cloister.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah. He's invited, apparently. Like he's he's he's so chill that like these very these powerful religious figures are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We know him, we like him, you can trust him. He's he's good. So he's thumbs up, yeah, he's a seal of approval.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Then I assume he makes his way to St. Petersburg or something. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Homie was so popular and gained influence so fast that he eventually landed himself in the same social circles and salons as the black princesses. Now, for those that don't know I don't know. Yeah. Though that was Princess Melista and Miletesia and A and another Princess Anastasia, an older one, who were married to cousins of the Tsar.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Why were they called the Black Princesses?

SPEAKER_00 43:42

I don't remember. Because I know of Montenegro.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Oh, okay. Which is the Black Mountain.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

So they are the Black Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

I just had to read a little further into my notes.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Yeah, there we go. So they're just they're known for their place of of of station.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yes, and it is through them that he links up with the royal family. He's he's kind of working and operating as sort of like a spiritual therapist for these nobles who are all very, very bored because Yeah, because they're the wealthiest people on earth and have nothing else to do. Exactly. And they're bored and like these are the same people that are gonna make spiritualism and um mysticism super popular. Like these people are hosting seances and shit for fun. Yeah. Because the fuck else are they gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Because right, because Nicholas is so wealthy and his family is so wealthy that he gives people as gifts for parties that they attend, diamond encrusted Fabrigae eggs.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

He's that kind of rich and everyone around them is like starving.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

And like so incredibly out of touch.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Like that, that that is largely like what fucked over the Imperial family there is that they just they were so far removed from their people that they they could not relate, could not understand, didn't like nothing about regular life made sense to them.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

The Russians were so out of touch, they sent one of their navies halfway across the world to go fight the Japanese. Oh and then got ambushed.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

And they got wrecked.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

They got wrecked because they were like, well, surely we can just overpower. And like they had no clue that the rest of the world was already massively militarizing.

unknown 45:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

It was, dude, it was a mess. Uh hilariously. Once once Resputin gets in with the royal family, he will beg Nicholas. Beg multiple letters, multiple meetings. Do not get involved with this. Do not step into this fight.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

World War I really fucked them up. Like it just bled.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

And they pulled out early, too.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Would you like to know why? Would you like to know more? Nicholas himself decided to take personal command of the army. Like he was on the front lines, which, first of all, no, sir, you're the monarch. Get the fuck off the front lines.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

And you are not in like with all your fake medals. You are not qualified for this. It should have been like a boyer leader from that area. Dude, it was a fighting.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

I give him props for trying to lead for the fr lead from the front. I get that. I my hat's off to you for trying, sir. However, you have no knowledge. You are not qualified. You are not listening to the people that are qualified. Stop it. And then you left your poor, I hate to say this, hysterical wife at home in charge of the government.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Yeah. And another terrible idea.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

And the only person that like can make her listen to reason is a peasant monk. It is a confirmed fact that he would go into the nursery where the children were, like the princesses and the young prince, and he would read them stories, and they would beg for him to come and like talk to them and play with them. And like they wanted him there.

SPEAKER_05 46:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Because he had a very soothing presence. And this apparently horrified so many people that this grown-ass monk man was in there with the kids.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Because the you always think the worst-case scenario of what other men of your time period would be like.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

The children, the princesses in particular, were luckets with uh with Gregory's portrait in them. Like right up until they themselves were killed. Like he was treated like family. We all know, but it was a huge political secret. That the that the the prince, the heir apparent, his only male heir, Alexi, had hemophilia.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

It was coming from this like semi-Habsburg line of his wife.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

And that hemophilia is how Rasputant got to meet the royal family. It was freaking out because her son had taken very, very, very ill. And medicine in 1906 is more modern, better, not fantastic. And they're doing the best they can to plead to treat this kid. For those that don't know, hemophilia is basically your body has a hard time clotting. If you take a bump or you get cut, most often you'll you'll see it depicted as, you know, you you get a cut and it just doesn't stop bleeding. That also means that you are you are a little more delicate internally as well. Being jostled about on a on a horse can suddenly sprout an internal bleed that has you forming a gigantic bruise on your side and bleeding out internally. It is during one of these episodes that Alexandra hears about this pseudo-holy man that seems to have a knack for spiritual healing. Now, Rasputin himself never claimed to be a spiritual healer. However, he did have a weird kind of like soothing effect on people. And it's it's it is it is attributed to hypnotism, but I'm not necessarily sure that he he hypnotized people intentionally. A little a little less that and a little more hoarse whisperer, I guess. I really hate to say that, but the vibe. So Alexandra summons him, partially explains the situation. This is my son, he's dying, he has this super secret thing that nobody is supposed to know about because, you know, we're supposed to be the royal family, we're supposed to be strong, we are, you know, the lifeblood of Russia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's a little convoluted as to how it happens, but Rasputin manages to calm Alexandra down and set her off to the side, and then he boots all the fucking doctors out and makes them stop giving him his medications. And there's a little bit of a story around like he throws a fit and throws all of Alexi's medications into the fire and makes them burn. And then, like, a few days later, Alexi is fine, prays over him, and like, you know, he's the kid's gonna be okay. It's okay, calm down. I'll whatever you however you address Azarina.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

Yeah. I wonder too, like, because I've heard of this part where I can tell you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Are you ready? Yeah, yeah. Are you ready, or would you like to, or would you like to hypothesize?

SPEAKER_02 49:52

Let me give one guess. Please. Because uh thankfully I've I've read a lot of stuff about medicine in this time period, and I wonder how many of the drugs they were giving him just make bleeding worse.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Contained aspirin? Yeah, because you're correct.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

They were giving Alexi a lot of medications that had aspirin in it for pain because they knew it was an analgesic.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

However, they didn't at that time know that it was also a blood thinner.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Right. But it was better than opium, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

So all of the all of these doctors trying their absolute best to help and save this prince. Like most of the doctors to to royal peoples in history were just making it worse.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

See the death of George Washington.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Zombie George Washington. Uh I'd loved that episode. That was such a fun episode. So he throws out all of Alexi's medication, kicks all the doctors out, prays over this poor kid, warms him back up. Like, you know, he's he's doing he's doing basically what he would do to his for his own kids, like out in the country.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Right. Yeah. Fresh air, yeah, silence, sleep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

And Alexi, miraculously, the next day, good as new.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Like all he had to do was kick the fools out of the room.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

All he had to do was make them stop giving him as spren.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

So what did he do it because he like knew something about it? Or he's just like, only God can heal it.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

I d I'm not sure. I I I'm pretty sure that he being as I am assuming that he he was very astute, very observant. Like I told you that my theory about like he was kind of like the dude in psych.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Where like he just like could read people real fast, had a He's a good cold caller.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Yeah, I think a cold reader, rather.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

That's that's what I'm getting out of it because he seems very charismatic. He seems very warm. People love him. Like like the the only real strike against him is kind of his his vices, yeah, that he uses to to find his religious peace. Yeah, he's just he's it's a very direct.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Yeah, other people are gonna find his religious peace. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Uh so I'm I don't necessarily think that he knew that like the medicines were hurting Alexi. Like, I don't think he knew that like the aspirin is what's causing all of the fucking bleeding. Yeah, throw it away. I think he saw a whole bunch of doctors having absolutely no luck saving this prince and yeeted them out and was like, all right, country medicine, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably was more than familiar about like the success rate of doctors in the time period.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

And not to mention this man is also a father of seven.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

So he's probably like defaulting into dad mode out in the country. I I'm I'm making some wild assumptions here. It but you know, that's that's that is where my notes led me.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Yeah. So in a way, he's like, something, something's up, get out of here. Yeah, he you're doing more harm than good.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Yeah, and like he probably prayed, he may have believed what he was doing was going to help, but he prayed over Alexi, he prayed with Alexandra, he prayed, open windows, warm the kid up, like, you know, fresh air, sunlight. Looks to to the the common eye, it looks very much like this man has walked in, said a prayer, healed the prince, and been like, all right, here you go. He's okay, deuces, see you later, and leaves. He is ambitious, like obviously, see his climb through the social circles, but I don't necessarily think that he he seemed to like have his sights set on the royal family. Like, I think he was he was there because he was asked to come. I think he was as charming as he always is. I think he treated them like real people.

SPEAKER_06 53:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

From what I read.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Please do not take my opinion as fact.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Either way, like he he's in the good graces. He's gone through this thing where people assume that something he has done has healed the prince.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

And then, like, where do we go from there?

SPEAKER_00 53:50

He kind of fucks off for another like year or two before he gets summoned back to the palace. The second time that he gets there, like when he's summoned back, is really when he like becomes our friend to the royal family. Basically, they're like, You saved my son, you calmed my wife down, speaking as Nicholas, yeah, which is fucking impossible. So, and at this point, he becomes like kind of the not necessarily the spiritual heart of the family, but he definitely becomes like the family therapist or the counselor, that's a better word for it. He kind of becomes the family counselor. Okay, and like he's he's able to calm Alexandra down when no one else can. And Nicholas is on record as saying better to have ten resputins than one of Alexandra's fits.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Yikes.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

That seems to be how bad it was.

SPEAKER_02 54:42

Yeah, I hope he's riding in hyperbole, but like anxiety, I cannot imagine, gets better with all the power in the world.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

All the power in the world. You have you have five children, one of whom the one that you have been waiting for, because you needed to produce a male heir, and that child is Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:03

In your understanding, there's a very real possibility that if you don't produce an heir, the Duma or the king himself is going to force a divorce.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Yeah, and well, luckily for Alexandra, it it's it it is a very documented thing that like Alexandra and Nicholas were I'm the last person to like poo-poo at a love story. It's just that like it is it is an unfortunate, like they were not really educated or fit to rule a country this size with this many problems.

SPEAKER_06 55:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

And especially, especially considering that they're they're about to like like square up against Lenin.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Yeah, well, they start because they start from the inside. Yeah. That's kind of how they get in, is that while all the madness is happening around Russia, a group of pretty well educated, but Lenin, like all those guys, uh, most of them were fairly wealthy. There's kind of this dumb mythos that they were all like hardworking proletariat. No, they like Stalin changed his name because he wanted it to sound more like rugged, right? Like he a lot of these guys were pretty wealthy and very educated, and they just kind of swooped in in the palace when everybody you know what I mean? Like their their movement happened at a right when it had to happen.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Otherwise, like any standing army being in Moscow at that time or St. Petersburg at that time, and they were gonna get crushed. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Like and I I I'll give you a little piece of information to to that that helped this movement at the end, uh, which I'm I'm sure you'll actually infer it once we get there, because we're coming up on it. We've only got one, two, three more pages of in my nine pages of notes. Told you I'm trying to streamline this shit. I wrote down so much. Anyway, so Russ Futin gets in good with the royal family. Like, he becomes kind of their like whole family confidant. They call him our friend. His sudden apparent like climb into the imperial bed, as it were, gains him absolutely no fans within the nobility. Like, for some reason, the fact that this man is a peasant ruffles all of these people's feathers all the wrong way. Like, never mind that a year ago all of them were like, oh, come hang out with us in our salon.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

We're gonna have a seance.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

But you've broken the unsaid, well, not even unsaid, but a very explicit rule.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

You are not one of us.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

But now he is being treated as higher than them. Like, Nicholas listens to him. Nicholas famously does not listen to anyone in the Duma.

SPEAKER_05 57:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

Which is Russian Parliament again. Alexandra listens to him. Alexandra doesn't listen to anyone. The children love him. The heir to the throne loves him.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Yeah, he's a he's a he's a man in the making. Yeah. He's a chief advisor in the making.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

And like I said, I'm I'm pretty sure that he had ambition. He was good, he he wanted to go places. I don't think that he wanted to be here.

SPEAKER_04 58:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

I d I don't think this was his target zone. This is kind of just, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

I think he was from what you told me, anyways, it would make more sense for him to, you know, make his way to St. Petersburg and be somebody.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

Well, yeah, that's where the there. That's where he was going with St. Petersburg.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Like that's where he was. And then summons from the royal family. What are you gonna do? Say no.

SPEAKER_06 58:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

No? Uh so he basically like he's he's very popular within like the immediate royal s royal circle and not with anybody else anymore because he has stepped overstepped his social bounds, essentially. And uh thus thus begins like this this weird sort of smear campaign throughout the media for Rasputin. Everybody thinks Res Putin is in charge. Everybody thinks that all of the bad things that are happening are Rest Putin's fault. And there's this also the weird prevalent thing of everybody thinks Res Putin is sleeping with Alexandra, even though there's zero evidence of it.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

But also, like women, powerful women in Russian history get a lot of slander outside of church women.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Yeah, church women very Catherine the Great.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Yeah. Oh, she fucks a horse. No, she doesn't. Yeah, like No, she didn't.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

She wouldn't have survived that.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Who all the rest of the non-nobility called the Great for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Right?

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Like that all of the slander came from the nobility.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

Which is once again probably what's happening here.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Because there are there are there are newspaper like cartoons and shit of like Resputin in bed with Alexandra, Resputin in bed with Nicholas, Resputin like holding puppeteer strings over Alexandra and Nicholas.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

This is the Duma trying to discredit him his family and get somebody else in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah. They're they're they are weirdly convinced that all of the bad is happening because this peasant has the ear of the king.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

Meanwhile, the evidence that we have, like from Nicholas's journals, which by the way, our our boy, our czar, was an ardent journaler. They have stacks and stacks and stacks of diaries from this man.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

Yeah, I've heard that we have like a ton of like um uh wire transfers too, where he would like send telegrams to his wife and back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Yeah. That's that's part of how we know that Nicholas and Alexandra were like actually a couple, beyond just like, oh, we're married, oh we have children, oh we rule this country. Nah. That's a love story.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

I'm very like partial to that, but also Jesus fucking Christ, guys. Yeah, go be in love in a corner, give all of the power to them, it's fine, just be figureheads.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

One instead of driving Russia into the ground.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

That's the Boyer system, though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Is that and like I said at the very beginning of it, uh Nicholas fought tooth and nail against the Duma.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Like he was he was like, no, this is my God-given power. I am the czar. Tried to say king. Same thing, basically.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

But like with the worst kind of parliament. Because they're not elected. They're like like I said, they're like barons.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

They're not they're not they're nobility in the sense that they own tons of shit. And are very powerful and and also when something goes wrong, they have you to blame.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

When in fact most of the country is actually regulated and run by the boyers. Yeah. Right? So they just get somebody to point at. It's a weird f and they're also kind of like the pseudo-religious head. So like the czar is kind of in charge of the Russian Orthodox, you know, like running certain festivals and such.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

Yeah. It there's so much. Like there's so there's so many videos of them in like procession for stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

And they cause riots all the time. Like they would try to feed people. Like, there's this instance of around Nicholas where like he throws this big party to celebrate something, and there's a bunch of free food for the peasants. There's a riot that breaks out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

Because people are starving.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:25

Yeah, and then they do this marching procession, and then people get sandwiched between each other, and like a thousand people die.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah, crowd crush.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

Yeah, and it's it's so it's so bizarre. It's just a comedy of errors. Like without the Boyer system, had he just been a king.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

Five Germans. You know, like just send a wire, send a wire, get like an Indian, a Chinese person, a British person, a German person, and just be like, How do I run a government? Yeah. But in his day, mostly like five Germans. Like he would have his military, he would have gotten advisors from from the fucking from Austria or or Prussia or wherever.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

And it's it's infuriating that he was essentially brainwashed into thinking this way.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:09

Yeah. He was built to be the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

At least he was correct and like you had such potential. You were a good person.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Yeah, like I mean, one of his near ancestors, right, Peter, yeah, is kind of a goofball as well. And and like but they had between him and Catherine the greatest ideas ever, which is to bring a world's fair of sort, like going to world's fairs, bringing them there, and seeking things that would make Russia better. Like one of the things that they do is they import the potato.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

And that r I mean that that's that is a fucking change. Everything got better. It's like it it grows in cold climates, it grows through tough snow. It it it you can make vodka from it. You can yeah, everything gets everything gets better. Over a couple of things. Like one of the things that he did is he tried to connect the rest of Russia from like Kamchatka all the way to like St. Petersburg.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Good job saying that because I can't.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

He tried to make a road. And they were they were trying to make that's why all these little towns in Siberia even exist.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

They were trying to make a trade route to Alaska, where a lot of their fur and and other trade and timber trade is all throughout Siberia. So they're like, if we can connect a big road, we can sell these things without having to go halfway around fucking Europe to do it. It'll be faster. Great idea. Phenomenal idea. You know what I mean? Like, but that takes other people. You start bringing in advisors and stuff to build out these systems.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

And poor Nicholas just I that what reading the fact that he fought the Duma so hard, like really made like really, really made me step back and look at him and go, you're not very bright, are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

He was not he was a good guy that just wasn't very smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

And also had was so disconnected that he would spend a million dollars in currency for a gift while his country was starving.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

Starving, literally starving.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Yeah, like that's there's a reason why, like, when when when the October Revolution happens and things get super violent, why a lot of Russians didn't have a lot of sympathy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

Like because it was just like oh Well, and there was there was because there was at that point there was a huge uh disconnect between between classes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

Yeah. Like it wasn't it You were either a stick farmer in Siberia or one of the wealthiest people on planet Earth.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Yeah, rolling in silk just because you can.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

And I wish I was exaggerating when I said that. I'm not. So from 1907 to 1916, which is when the deed is done. Rasputin spends this time as like the royal bestie and he helps out at the palace. Like he he lends he lends a he lends a a voice to the common folk, which point in his favor.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

That definitely needed that he tried because he did try very hard. Like when Nicholas would come to him and ask things, he had the opinion, the point of view of the common person. And he did try to make things better for the general populace of Russia. However, our boy Greg was living a bit of a double life. Like in the palace being very helpful as helpful as he could be giving advice for, you know, in favor of the common people and you know seeming to be a very like pious homie. And then he would leave the palace and he would just go be a frat bro ho.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

You know power to him.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

And like I can't even be mad because apparently his wife knew and was chill with it. Or I guess as chill as a wife could be.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:12

Yeah. I mean maybe she had people we don't know. Yeah we really don't yeah everybody was getting I mean you you spend a lot of time in pre-revolutionary France. What are the peasants looking like around there?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:24

You were hitting around man a lot a lot of sex in Victorian England just not with the nobility I want to read you guys my notes again because like I I occasionally crack myself up with the notes I leave myself with frat bro that was DTF at all times.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:43

His fucking telegrams just look like you up yeah telegrams I'm sorry that was uncomfortable I'm about to we're about to experience some religious bliss you down to pray oh my let's open up the good book and then open up something else like open up this anyway like the Bible says Katie sow a seed oh my gosh so I hope we get at least one like response to this like this is not in good taste.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

I know we're aware I'm sorry I'm trying I've I'm trying to give you the background on all of this before we get into the super unsavory stuff which I just now realized we did no trigger warnings on any of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:35

Oh thankfully the this story is pretty well known people know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

I hope uh and and I'm and I'm not going to go into like gross detail at the end where the trigger warnings should be so we should we should be okay. Yeah. Uh just have some fun with us please and like you know we're trying to make light of a pretty heavy subject here because Russia in the early 1900s was a hot bed of yeah a lot of a lot of suffering a lot a lot of suffering. So we're just trying to you know lie in the mood a little bit. Because if I if I read this to you the way that I would read the news today.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

Alright frat bro that was down to fuck. Um so there's sort of like I said this this there's this convergence of opinions around him like he's very very very unpopular because he is a peasant in noble circles that seems to have a lot of say so with you know the czar which I'm I'm sure the people of the Duma were very upset about because they couldn't make Nicholas listen to them.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

But meanwhile this mad monk going around buffing people um but but the commoners see him as like one of them. Yeah exactly yeah he's just one of theirs.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

And the and it's also there's also like a a known thing that he he brings stuff to people that need it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Like he's he's he's doing good works.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

Yeah because the throw outs of like the Imperial Palace he can just hand I mean it would be like someone if if Revolutionary France if someone was in Versailles the stuff that would go in the trash would feed hundreds and hundreds of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

I mean like and he's in in this entire time like he's not at the palace 100% of the time like he's not chilling with Nicholas like in the bath or anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Although I'm sure there's probably one of those smear comics somewhere that has that uh but he's traveling around he's he's continuing on his religious migrations he's going back home to his wife and kids before he moves them to St. Petersburg um like he's he's he's moving shaking going around and he he gets another of those emergency telegrams telegraphs from I said telegram earlier didn't I I meant telegraph uh message he gets a message not a text but like you know a a paper thingy from Alexandra that Alexi has fallen ill again it's happened again Alexi is bleeding internally he's on death's door nothing is okay I'm freaking out the kids are freaking out by the t okay so here's the thing you have to understand how mail worked back then because we live in a digital age oh god yeah like they live in the age of go station to station and get a fresh horse. Yeah yeah like that's meanwhile right now I could text my uncle who's in Chicago and be like what are you having for dinner? Yeah by the time that Gregory Resputin gets this message from Alexandra the danger is over like by the time that he gets it and replies and Alexandra gets the reply Alexi is fine. It is implied by this message that he has prayed for the boy and like you know oh that he's healed him even from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:53

Yeah and like this is like almost like Jesus and yeah if you just tell me he's healed I'll believe it. You know like that Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:00

Yeah that's that's that's a little bit like what it is implied as but the reality of the fact is by the time that Rasputin even got that message Alexi was out of danger.

unknown 1:12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

But to Alexandra to the Imperial family it looks like Rasputin has done it again.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Saved the boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:16

Because he's had a big bruise he's bled a little bit and then he probably had a fever.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:21

Because he's a kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:21

Because he's a little kid yeah like and he's got and he's in he's bleeding so maybe even a minor infection but like kid healing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

And once again once again Rasputin's advice for all of this is make the doctors leave him alone.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

Do not let the doctors bother him so much is the exact quote.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

Pretty sound advice for the like the late 1800s and early 1900s.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:43

Yeah in in a very general way make the doctors leave him alone yeah and so and this incident in incident ingratiates him like even further to to the imperial family and it is now like the tipping point for these nobles who are like this motherfucker this grifter that has too much say too much power meanwhile like Resputin is just bebopping along drinking fucking visiting his family handing out food and clothes and helping where he can being a hippie. Yeah being a hippie yeah and they think that he's like hang on let me let me read this to you really quick so there's this sort of convergence of opinions making him real unpopular because he is a commoner rising way too high in influence and it and he is perceived as a debauched grifter leeching off of the royal family and the powerful people outside the royal fam have decided he needs to fucking go they have decided that this man is the problem. He is all of the problem. Nicholas refuses to return to St. Petersburg will not come back to the Duma won't listen to anybody but he'll but but he talks to Resputin all the time.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

Meanwhile Resputin's probably in the palace maybe 20 30% of the time he's just writing letters talking to people because they're talking to him.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:11

Yeah he's I I remember reading a a thing where he spent a lot of time with like soldiers. Yeah. Like they would like play cards and shit together. Yeah. And then like one of his we'll get in probably this in here in a second, but one of his like attempts at the at the the the nobility to get rid of him happened like right outside of a guard house like yes there is there was a woman that was incited to try to assassinate him uh and like I was literally just about to get into that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

Thank you for that beautiful segue Brian I appreciate you they decided that it is time for him to fucking go. They don't like him. And so they they they run like even more of a smear campaign on Resputon because they don't like him.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

And this woman it's there are some accounts that say she's a prostitute there are other accounts that say she's just an impoverished woman and there are still more accounts that like there nobody can get this this story straight on who this lady is but this woman comes up out of the crowd as he's like leaving having a good time this guard house this this barracks as it were and she fucking runs him through with a knife like she guts him. Jeez like I read I read one this this is this is how I know it was a gut shot. I read one account where it said that she stabbed him in the chest. Yeah which in given that time period that's gonna be iffy on if you're gonna survive that because you're either going to collapse the lung and get pneumonia and drown.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

Yeah d depending on if you hit a bone.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

Yeah if you stop in the bone if it glances off the rib bone then yeah you're you may be okay or if it maybe like you know clips your clavicle instead but this is how I know it's a gut shot because she stabs him and she basically says like for seducing the innocent because once again our boy is a hoe. Yeah and he's a known hoe's gonna do hoe things.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:57

Yeah no hate granddad she's a hoe like a hoe to a hotel um hotel everybody he really did uh so she gut shots him but he doesn't drop he's like literally holding his entrails in oh definitely as he runs for medical aid like he runs which respect get the fuck out of there yeah like this lady just came up out of nowhere accused you of like witchcraft essentially yeah seducing the innocent or at least trickcraft like I wanted to say trignology but you know what that's a different thing altogether yeah but yeah he this so this this knife wound almost kills him like it is near fatal yeah they don't have antibiotics no at this time not anybody else is carbolic acid yet and it is it is almost lethal it almost kills him and the fact that it doesn't adds to his like villainous mythos yeah sure that he has somehow like sold his soul to be immortal no he's just got a really resilient constitution guys he's a vegetarian yeah meanwhile any soldiers like yeah sometimes you survive these things yeah yeah all the soldiers in Siberia and eastern Russia are all going like yeah you survive a gut shot sometimes you know it's painful as hell but not everybody dies.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

Yeah he does he so he doesn't die and it's it becomes like this this sort of I don't it's so weird that you know getting getting stabbed in the guts like getting stabbed in the stomach your insides are your outsides and you're holding them in and you're running to safety and you're trying to save your own life somehow becomes part of like your villainous lore.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

Yeah. I've just like any normal man would have died. I'm just like there's not really a a way to predict that it's very strange but like sometimes get people get their like legs blown off by cannonballs and live. Yeah and then sometimes people scratch themselves with the garden tool.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

Yeah like they there's not really a or you're a prince with a particularly like you know inability to clot and you fall off your horse get a bump on your knee and die.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

Yeah. Which is not what happened to Alexi but but it yeah happens to people like people die for weird reasons all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:29

And don't for incredible reasons that we like we understand how you can survive that but it's just the odds are pretty low.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

Like that dude that took a steel uh the the steel Phineas Gage. Yeah you know exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

Took a tamping rod to the dome couldn't think of the the word he was he was champing down like dynamite or soil on top of it it went off and it went straight up through his head.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:53

And he lived and was fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:54

Yeah yeah through his head through there is some the whole thing is that it like well it changed his personality but there's some like trauma does that to people. Also yeah it it shattered his jaw like he had a hole in his head for the rest of his life so maybe it was also the constant incredible pain. Yeah uh but it's how we know that the frontal lobe is part of the thing that like can change your personality is that it went through his frontal lobe. Had it gone further back he would have died instantaneously but like yeah right up right up through the dome.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:24

But yeah that so he's so he lives so Gregory our boy Gregory because I hate to call him Resputin because Resputin calls to mind the villain that I grew up so our boy our our gr I grew up knowing.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

Yeah whereas like like I'm imagining like the Russian of being like Gregory you know like it's probably a pretty common name so our our our boy Greg makes a full recovery.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

It takes time it takes a lot of time and it changes a lot of like how he exists because he took a knife to the stomach. Yeah you're gonna be a little more cautious after that that and like just the physiology around that like you you have taken trauma to the place where you digest things true so it changes it changes his diet it changes how he lives good thing he wasn't a heavy drinker. Oh but he was oh man oh but he was however he did have to give up one of his one of his things which was sweets he stopped he stopped eating sweets because he was basic basically had an ulcer. And this is key information for those that don't know you will find out so he makes a full recovery it takes him about a year year and a half and then like literally literally almost as soon as like this is this is done and he's back up to doing ho things it it makes me laugh that this religious man who like you know was was sold to me originally as a priestly style figure.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

Yeah as like a a dark priest a a crazed a crazed lunatic the mad monk yeah was it's it's interesting in fact like a a gambling drinking whoring kind of nice guy yeah and it's so weird that because like later like there would be a whole bunch of like essay and like rape allegations that would follow him around but there none of them are substantiated. Yeah it's when then that's kind of the problem of its day as well is that there it's not like there's like yeah there's no real town paper in every place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Like one of one of the nursemaids for like considering how much time he spent how much time how little time the time that he spent in the royal quarters and stuff like you know just going in and reading the kids' stories talking like letting the girls talk to him because that appeared to be like a lot of what he did was he would just let the princesses talk to him. Yeah and he would off often offer like really benign religious advice like turn the other cheek. Yeah yeah take a moment pray about it breathe yeah move on like I've I've read a lot of his his messages between the various princesses and yeah it all seems like really solid standard uncle advice. Yeah yeah but one of the nursemaids uh like after the big stink of somebody's somebody's sister I want to say it was Nicholas's sister discovering that this grown ass man is hanging out in the nursery with the princesses uh through a walleyed fit and then like shortly thereafter one of the nursemaids accuses him of SA. Ah so this this may be an in-the-house attempt to get him thrown out but maybe and it kind of works because like Nicholas is like okay this is stupid I know but no more the nursery and there there is no record of Gregory going fighting for anything. He's just like yeah okay yeah cool. We'll chill in the gardens. Yeah public scrutiny yeah and like once again I sound like I'm defending him but when I don't know this person at all but there's literally no evidence that he ever put up any sort of a fight about being restricted from various areas or anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:54

Like there's there's actual evidence where he was like I need to go home to my wife and Alexandra being like no I need you yeah right I'm a I'm a hysteric person who's also not used to hearing the word no yeah and like that that would be the that would be the other thing is this like a nursemaid in any royal household is also a royal.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Yeah so like uh probably a member of lesser nobility right but like suicide you know what I mean like that's like imagine doing that in England you know assaulting someone's handmaid yeah oh shit yeah and you're just a commoner your head's coming off yeah you are you are canon fudder my friend no jeez so yeah there there there's these there's these unsubstantiated stories that follow him around about like you know less than savory things and some of them could be true some of them may be true I don't know because there's not a whole whole lot of record keeping speaking against him beyond what happened after he died or what started to come up after he was killed. So we don't know I'm just giving you the the hard evidence that I do have along with my opinion it's my opinion I love you so in 1916 they have decided they've had the fuck enough and there's one guy who decides to spearhead this shit and it's so funny to me that it is who it is you know what let me let me just dive into this smash cut to 1916 that's literally in my notes that's what it says when Prince Felix Yusupov that's it Yucipov Prince I know I am but what are you uh Prince Felix decides that because he is the richest man in all of Russia Russia because he is he has decided that because he has a reputation for being absolutely useless like one of his nieces said it to his face and by and by one of his nieces I mean one of the princesses as in the daughter of the czar.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

You are a useless man yeah called him useless of the royal line like yeah he's one of the he's like a boyer prince right like he's he just owns a lot of shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:09

He owns fucking everything. Yeah he's so rich it's stupid and he he he didn't serve in the military he doesn't serve on the Duma he does nothing but be rich and spend money dick all yeah and one of the princesses called him useless and this apparently got under his skin and he decided he decided his reputation for being useless needed changing. So he he took it upon himself that he was going to become a man of action and kill Rasputin that seems really extreme right like just go join the war effort.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:47

It it seems like yeah it it because I I'm sure from his perspective he's like this guy might replace some of us right and also he's currying favor with the other with the other members of the Duma and other young boy or family there is aristocrats.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:06

There are four other dudes that decide yeah this is a good idea and they're all 20 I actually don't know how old they are I didn't look at how old they were I'm fucking positive. But like it cracks me up that this that this prince that Felix because I'm not going to try to say his last name again Felix has decided that because my my niece a princess called me useless and because my various cousins and such are also princesses and are nurses in the war effort yeah Princess Olga the Tsar's sister is in the trenches as a nurse.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:45

She's one of the ones that if I remember she survives she makes her way to like Vienna or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

Yes and she marries for love and okay let me give you hang on let me pause really quick.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:57

So Princess Olga she's the old woman in Anastasia that's right I remember good job so Miss Olga gets married to a man that she does not love.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:08

She likes him well enough but they're not in love. They're they're they're married and also this guy is gay and she knows and she doesn't mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:14

Yeah cool. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

Lavender marriage basically gay inspiration yeah until she meets and falls in love with an army army officer and she's like I am absolutely head over heels in love with you. You are my soulmate you are the other half of me we are forever and he's like I feel the same they're absolutely does he or is he just like she's rich as fuck he is in love with her. Okay. Like she like he is the reason that she joins the war effort as a nurse.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:43

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:44

And like she gets it like she gets assigned to his unit to make sure like she's she's she's she's a nurse. She's treating everyone but she's also near him. And so eventually she writes her husband and she's like hey can we divorce because we're not in love.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:59

And I am in love And I would very much like to have children with the man I'm in love with. And he goes, No.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:06

And so she goes, fuck. And deals with him for like another few years until she's like fucking done at this point. And she writes her brother, the czar, and is like, So can I have a divorce?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:18

Can you can you annul this? Yeah, Sydney head of the church.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:21

And Nikki, as she called him, is like, absolutely. Gab it. I got Jesus. It's cool. Officially annulled. And like a week later, she marries this army officer, like so fast.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:32

That's that's kind of great, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:34

Yeah, and they are so in love, they spend the rest of their lives together. They have a mess of kids, a mess of grandkids.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:39

If only the rest of them had done that, right? They probably would have saved their kingdom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:44

So and he's he's actually the reason she survived because like he got wind of what was going down, and he was like, absolutely not, oh go, we're leaving. And she's like, but but but but but and he's like, no butts, throws her over his shoulder and bails.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:55

Because that's the thing. Like, we talk about the October Revolution as though it was just, oh my god, nobody knew. I was like, no, half of the army knew they were tired of being used as cannon fodder.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:05

Most of the higher ups thought that if these guys pull this off, we'll have a better chain of command.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:11

And we won't be sent on impossible missions over what is a large flat tundra.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:18

When you look at like the stuff in Europe is a little like more cagey than that, but like towards the southern borders where you're talking about like the fighting with like Turkey and stuff, when you look at troops in that and like, or some of the stuff going on in the Middle East, it's like trenches over flat empty. Yeah, it's just monstrous. And you're just like, so anybody who comes up is gonna get shot immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:39

Yeah, so it is absolutely no surprise at all that Olga survived because her husband went absolutely not, we're leaving.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:45

Uh, and she is like later made to renounce her claim to any sort of nobility. She keeps the title though.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:51

Um, like they let her keep that, and she's just like, nope, I'm not in charge of anything. I'm gonna go be a wifey over here. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Yeah, because that that would be more about the country you end up being in.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:00

Is if they recognize you as a member of aristocracy.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:04

So anyway, that that's that was that was the second love story in this Russian story. Uh fucking the czar and czarina being absolutely in love and so bad for the country.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:15

And then fucking the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess over here being like, I'm in love with this army officer, and him being like, I'm in love with you too. Yeah But we're in separating my station now, so you're already married.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:28

But yeah, no, they they literally live happily ever after.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

That's good. At least one of yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:34

Yeah. So back to the uh the the little tiny we're not useless coup. So Bro didn't act alone. Four other noblemen were directly involved with all of this. That is uh Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

Me struggling with these last names. It's always the last name, too. The first name I can get usually pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:00

I imagine it especially fucks with you because some of their letters are backwards, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:05

Uh, the second of which being Vladimir Pershevich? Parisevich. There we go. Somewhere around in there. He's a member of the Duma.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:13

Uh, and then a Dr. Stanislaus de Los Vert.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:19

His name confuses me because it's like it's German at the beginning, and then we're Spain in French.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:27

Yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:28

Your name is confusing, Sergey. And then Lieutenant Sergei Scoton.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:34

Now we're back to normal names for the area.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:37

Nope, it's I'm I'm saying it wrong. But anyway, Sergei. Lieutenant Sergei.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

All of them wanted Nicholas to return to St. Petersburg and actually listen to the Duma about anything at all. They were having absolutely no luck. So they were very frustrated, so they decided, you know what, we're just gonna take out the problem that we or rather the thing that we think is the problem, which is Resputin.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

Yeah, because I wonder how much they're like convinced that the military waywardness of Nicholas is kind of coming from him, but like it wasn't, he was just kind of dumb.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:12

Like, I hate to say that about a person who ends up pretty tragically, but like And I'm sure there were probably a couple of instances, at least, at least, where Resputin probably had no fucking idea what advice to give, so he just gave Nicholas what he wanted to hear.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:29

I mean, everybody in art, everybody, everybody on this planet has done that at least once.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:34

Yeah, and and this guy is from the stuff that I've read about him, he kind of comes off as a little bit of a confidence man. And so, like, and that's what they do. Yep. They tell you what you want to hear. And and uh, and then usually, you know, in this case, he doesn't even have to come up with any kind of like sudden urgency because the kid is providing this all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:55

Yeah. So Alexandra is probably providing this all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:01

Because like I said, like I said, it's literally on record. You can you can Google that right now. Like Czar Nicholas, better to have ten resputins than one of Alexandra's fits.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:11

It is straight up fact that that their family gets hit by like three or four con men, and mostly their family is better for having been hit by con men. It's crazy, right? Wild. Yeah. Yeah, like you're just like, holy shit, you guys will believe anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:27

Like that's that's crazy shit, but like it's a good cause it it legit sounds like the smart one survived.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:34

And I feel bad about saying that, but well, the the the one that got out into the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:38

Yeah. You know, like she was a nurse in the trenches.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:42

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:43

Probably several of the boyers, they're beef with what's going on is that Nicholas is not to their standards, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:50

Famously disconnected from the world. Yeah. Like they like I I was I was reading parts of um autobiographies, yeah, from especially from Olga's point of view, which how she would describe how she grew up. And I was just like, how did you survive the like cultural whiplash of going from being a princess to being the grand duchess, being a noble to being a fucking army wife?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:21

That's a lot of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:23

Like, I my hat's off to you, madam, because that had to be like culture shock. So they decide these these five dudes hatch a plot to use our boy's vices against him. It is well known that Grigory Rasputin likes to party.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:40

He likes to party and he likes to pray.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:42

In that order.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:43

Literally, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:44

Like that is right. According to his own philosophy, you do the bad stuff first.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:49

Yes, he must sin so he can experience the ecstasy of repenting.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:54

It's a strange thing to be like party, you know. Normally the Catholic thing is like you you sin on Saturday and Pray about it on Sunday. Pray about it on Sunday. But his whole thing is like that's just more party.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:06

Right? Like he's wanting a this is part of it. He's like, no, the the the ecstasy of incredible repentance is what I'm after.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:13

So like So I must, I must kind of dig it. I right? It's it doesn't sound so bad coming at it from a modern perspective. So Gregory likes to know people. He is a people person from all of these accounts. Like he he likes to socialize, he likes to party, he obviously likes women.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:34

Yeah, yeah, they're all singing that song. You know, we know it. Ra rah rah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:38

I want you to know that that's what this is like. I'm not even kidding. I have no pencil with me today. Yeah, I have none. There's no possible way for me to have just written this.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:48

The title of the page, it even has a date mark. Rahra Rasputin 1230. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:58

So, yeah, and Lieutenant Sergei, very, very, very famously has a very pretty, very young, very popular wife who likes to host parties. Her name is Irina. And Rasputin has never met her. And from the account that I read of this, now granted, this the what I'm about to report to you on, but I'm so uncomfortable saying that.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:23

And this from some this from St.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:24

Petersburg comes from a couple of different sources. It comes from Felix's the book that he will write later. His account of the entire thing. Uh, the autopsy reports, and then just kind of like general historical fact-checking, like through police reporting. Don't necessarily know how good that is in 1916, but here we are. Great.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:46

So there's also this video that I will I will send you if you want of uh people that have digitally reconstructed this entire night from I I I'm not I'm not sure where they got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:59

I presume they're using Oh no, I I remember this being like a history channel thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a long time ago because they it's like it's like a 3D graphic, but like kind of crappy, and he's like wandering through the snow and then there's a gunshot.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:14

Okay, cool. Yeah, you've seen it.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:16

I was I was I was I was there back in the day. I remember it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:20

I was there. Uh so yeah, there they it was it was pretty great, it was pretty entertaining. Uh I'm not necessarily sure how much of that is speculation versus fact, but here we go. Rasputin wants to meet Irena. He he wants to meet Irene. Yeah, uh he wants to meet her, chill with her, party, whatever, and they invite him to this party. They they give him this invitation, they're like, no, you must come, you must come. And Rasputin, being the dude bro, frat guy that he is, he's just like, yeah, totally, I'll be there.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:48

Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:49

Fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:52

Yeah. Party. Woo! I'm gonna go pray about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:56

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:59

Sorry, I got myself. Uh so they set up, they they do this crazy, like oceans a level, oceans 11 style heist to pull this shit off. They go to Felix's house, his great big palace, right? And he has this man cave downstairs, this basement apartment style thing that he has set up for like social interactions. There's actually pictures of it online if you want to look at it. And it look, it looks like a little cafe, it looks like a little bar, it looks like a party spot because that's what it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:29

They cater this place. They deck out the basement apartment as if a dinner party has just finished and the staff hasn't quite made it up, made it down to cleanup yet. And when I say that, they have plate, they set out, like this dinner party doesn't happen. Okay? There there are no other guests. That is just the five of them and Rest Butin. Okay? They set out half-drunk champagne glasses, wine glasses, water glasses, plates that have like little bits of food still on them. They have a little like buffet set out that looks like it's been picked over and eaten on. Like, they do the most to make it look like the dinner party has just gone upstairs and continued the party. And why? Because they have music playing upstairs. They have lights on up there. They have done the fucking most. So when Rest Butin gets there fashionably late, as her, or he arrives kind of nearabouts the time that they told him to. He gets there and he thinks, oh, I'm just I'm late. I just missed dinner. And they're like, no, no, no, stay, eat. You've you're a busy man, do what you need to do, you know, eat, please. Let me let me chill with you while you eat, and we'll talk and we'll have fun, and you know, and then we can go upstairs and you can meet Sergei's wife and you know, socialize, and they feed him wine, various foods, there's pastries and cakes. All of it is laced with arsenic.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:54

Yeah. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:56

They decided that poison would be the cleanest and the fastest way to get rid of this guy, right? So they they have laced all of his food with arsenic. Now you and I both know that arsenic acts fast.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:09

But like there is immediate discomfort and pain, quickly followed by system shutting down.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:15

But pain in the gut, which he would just maybe even assume is from his wound.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:20

Well, here's the thing. He never touches the cake, which is where most of the arsenic is. Because he no longer eats sweets because it upsets his stomach.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:27

Very cool. Okay. Uh there is also And he doesn't eat meat either. So he's Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:35

It's awesome. So their plan is kind of foiled by his just general diet now. However, it's also in the wine, according to Felix's account of things. However, one hour stretches into two. Two hours stretches into three. We heard the rumor that he was immortal, but this isn't possible. How is he not ill? So Felix excuses himself for just a moment, runs upstairs, talks to his conspirators, guys. It's been it's been two and a half hours. He's fucking fine. What are we doing?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:10

Why is this not working? Give it more time. No, I don't want to give it more time. He's getting suspicious. Why can't I come upstairs and socialize? What are we doing? Fuck it. Sergey, give me your gun. The poison has not worked at all. So he goes back downstairs, according to his account, fires four shots. Two of which miss, one of which catches him through the heart and drops him. Sounds like he just got a chest shot.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:38

And they're like, oh, he's dead. Okay, cool. Woo! It's done. Messier, louder than we intended, but it's done. Until Rasputin cracks an eye open, gets up, swings on Felix, and bolts. Thus begins the rather exciting and action-packed portion of this because Felix claims that he uh that uh Rasputin assaults him.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:00

Yeah, he punches him.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:01

You just fucking shot him.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:02

Yeah, yeah. Assault in like in the general sense of like he I got attacked. Runs out.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:09

He had to have had something in his pocket. Because the thing is, like when you are like bulletproof armor, if something hits you up close really hard, a lot of times it just knocks you out. Yeah. Like it knocks you to the ground. And uh because it hurts, right? It's like somebody hitting you in the chest with a hammer. Like it's it's not piercing, but the per the impact of it hurts.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:27

Yeah. So he makes it all the way upstairs and out into the snowy courtyard and almost makes it to the gate before he is taken. He's felled by four more shots. God damn. Eight bullets. Allegedly, only two of them have struck him at this point. And that is where he still has not died. So Felix and the other four conspirators grab clubs and anything they can possibly find and proceed to beat this man who will not die. They beat him until he is black and blue, like he is at their feet. Unconscious, dead, maybe, I don't know. At this point, they wrap him up, throw him in the trunk of a car, and drive down to the river. Where they toss him into a hole in the ice, thinking the job is done. And then they go back and clean up the party and burn one of his boots and his in his coat.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:17

Yeah. To get rid of evidence that isn't gonna flow down the river for a month.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:21

And uh somewhere in this, the police show up because of the gunshots and they're like, What the hell happened? And one of the guys comes clean to the police officer and says, We've killed Rest Butin. And according to this account, the police officer goes, I didn't hear nothing, I don't know nothing, I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:38

I I believe this, and and I say that because like this is imperial business. I'm not getting wrapped up in this shit. I'm going home.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:47

And so three days later, Rest Butin's body is fished out of the river. And this is this is this is where this is where like Felix's account, the urban legends, and then like the autopsy report all kind of go, huh? At each other. Because Felix's account lines up with very little. Like it it feels very embellished, or maybe like trauma has altered your memory in some way.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:15

Or you're trying to sell a book.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:16

Bingo.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:18

That was my thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:19

Liars. Liars publish crazy shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:22

And so the autopsy report, however, says that there is only two bullet wounds on this man. There's one in his there's one in his in his chest and another in his forehead.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:35

And that forehead shot is not like shot in the back of the head. It is close range to his forehead because there is gunpowder on his skin.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:44

Oh, yeah. Felix Felix walked up to him, popped him in the fucking skull.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:48

Or shot him in the chest, then walked up and in his chair, popped him in the skull.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:53

Or they did all of this outside because there was no blood or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:57

Yeah. And uh yeah, fuck this.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:59

They're this the poison shit is just to vilify him.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:02

Yeah, like that's the autopsy report revealed that there was no arsenic in his system.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:07

Absolutely not a drop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:10

The autopsy report also.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:13

That's amazing. I've never heard this before, but a hundred percent I can see how this played out in my head. Come come outside with me. Let's take a little walk.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:22

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:27

That's why they burned his coat. There's a fucking hole in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:30

And his boot.

unknown 1:45:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:32

For whatever reason, just fucked away. Why'd you burn it? It's gonna stink. Uh so yeah. The autopsy report also like denies the urban legend that he was still alive when he was thrown in the river, and like the river is what killed him, rather than all of the gunshots and the trauma and shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:50

He did not drown in the river. There was no water found in his inside in his lungs at all. Uh, there is also a pervasive urban legend around Rasputin that you and I both mentioned vaguely. Oh, his giant where he was emasculated before he was thrown in the river. That is false.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:10

There's no there's no cock in a jar.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:12

The the cock in a jar that is in the like mythological sort of collection of a museum somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:20

It's gotta be like a horse or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:21

It isn't it is not actually a cock, it's sea sponges.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:24

Oh, great. Awesome. Because they kind of look like that and also squirt. Yeah. Like when you pick them up out of the water, they do this weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:32

I went on your hands. Do you do you know what my Google history looks like right now? It's a fucking mess because I went after that one. Because I was like, none of the other urban legends are true. I need to know if this one is true.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:45

It is not. There is not emasculated. The autopsy report did not report that there was anything missing.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:54

I bet the reason they whole they said that whole thing, and he only died once we threw him in the river was because that's like an old like Strigoi thing and vampire thing, is they can't cross water. If you throw them in the water, they die. It's also how like witches die. You throw them in water.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:09

You're trying to vilify them.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:10

That is exactly my thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:12

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:13

Old-fashioned Russian mob pop-pop.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:17

Yeah. One in the heart, shoot him in the head to make sure he's dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:21

All of that. He was 47 years old. And by like all of the written accounts, a pretty chill dude who just so happened to be a little creepy in pictures. But in person, Uncle Gregory.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:35

Awesome. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:37

And his daughter, if you'll recall correctly, when uh Maria, when she grew up and moved to LA and became a lion tamer, came out and publicly decried all of this shit. Like Felix's entire book was like, absolutely not. No, that is not what happened. Like he he claims in the book that like they that he he like that uh Russ Sputin gorged himself on cake and wine down in down in that that basement party section.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:10

And they had laced all of it with arsenic, like it was heavy with it, and he ate it and experienced absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:17

But he was a such a party guy. People would know that he didn't eat sweets.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:21

You'd think, right? Yeah, like it was his daughter that came forward and said, My father couldn't eat sweets. Like after he was stabbed, it upsets. He didn't really like them to begin with. And then after he was stabbed, they upset his stomach.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:32

Being a guy from Siberia and not being raised with a lot of sugary food, I'm sure it he didn't eat a lot of sweets.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:38

Yep. That's so fucking And I if I recall what I read correctly, and I'm I'm riffing at this point. We've hit the end of my notes. Like we're done. Um, if I recall correctly, she is the one that released the uh the telegraphs of his correspondence with the royal family, of him just being very, very, very fatherly, very uncle.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:58

And that lines up a little bit better with the nurse and what she was saying about the whole yeah, about her probably limited uh dealings with with Gregory Rusbuton. But like that that's wow. I've that last bit about like of just that one in the fucking chest, one in the head, I've never heard that before. That's that makes so much more sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:23

Two bullets. Two, and you can see them in the pictures because there are pictures of his body.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:28

There is a oh, she's probably very well preserved for like a floater, basically, but like in the middle of wind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:36

Like there, there, there's a there's a myth and urban legend that apparently he was like still alive when they fished him out of the water and like died making the sign of the cross.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:45

He know that that that was that was sub zero temperatures, freezing water and rigor morris.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:50

Yeah, all the all the major, all the strongest muscles pulled together and that looks like T Rex hands. Yeah, like that's sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:58

So it was this was a Wild read for me. Like I knew one of us was going to do Risput eventually. Yeah. Uh YouTube just decided that it was gonna be me and it was gonna be this week.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:08

That's so quiet. You know what I love too about the sea cucumber thing? That's a common thing in like anime when they want to do a little bit of fan service and be kind of gross and sexy and funny, but they don't want to put anything like that because usually the crowd and the thing is too you know, anime simmers on younger people.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:24

It's usually a face shot with with seasons.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:26

Somebody picks up a sea cucumber and it does that.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:29

That's the craziest thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:32

Like they tested it. It's a fucking sea cucumber.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:35

Thank you so much. You're very welcome. This is fucking great.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:39

Happy Morphe Monday, you guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:40

I made a bunch of stuff. Yeah, fuck that's the thing, too, is that there's not really a way to lace like vegetables.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:47

Yeah. Because like this man was a known vegetarian.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:50

Arsenic.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:51

And a heavy drinker.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:52

And arsenic tastes, it's not tasteless. So it's like it kind of is, but but it's you can't put it in like broth. You're gonna be able to notice. It's gotta be like alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:01

And here's the thing if you're a heavy drinker, like if you have alcoholic gastritis, which Gregory probably did, because he was a heavy drinker, that's gonna neutralize some of the uh some of the arsenic BT dubs.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:14

Does it really just for sheer acid? Or that what it's the lack of acid. That's because there's nothing to dissolve it into the blood.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:22

Oh man, that's so even if they had arseniced him, which they didn't because the autopsy report showed no evidence of it. Right. Now granted, this is an autopsy report from 1916. However, arsenic powder has been around for a very, very, very long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:37

Very, very documentary.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:38

Physicians know what to look for because if you'll recall, it also has another name.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:44

Inheritance powder.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:45

We covered this in our Aquatefana episode that you could tell from the autopsy if a person had died from either cyanide or arsenic because it does very specific things to the body. That's fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:56

Isn't it great?

SPEAKER_02 1:51:57

It's it's excellent.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:58

You can see why there's nine pages of this now.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:00

Yeah. I and also there's so much mystique around like, oh, he's so invulnerable, but like you can survive a shallow cut to the stomach.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:08

Well, no, it wasn't shallow. Like they if the report is to be believed, like he was holding his guts in, like she like got and wrenched up. Yeah. Um, it was it was near fatal. Like he was hospitalized, and they were like, Oh, he's gonna die. Yeah, he didn't die. I could kind of see I I kind of see that as but there's also a report that said it was a chest shot, too. So I don't know which one to go with beyond I'm gonna go with his daughter's uh words because she said after he was stabbed, yeah, his stomach was very sensitive.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:42

Yeah, yeah. I believe it's a gut shot. I don't believe his like guts were spilling out in that way. The thing is, like, that's like hernia, right? Yeah, a small hole can have your gut spilling out. But also if you rip across the intestines, you're definitely gonna die. Yeah, you're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:57

You're gonna take septic in hours and die.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:00

Yeah, but if you get a piercing hole from a small knife in the stomach, there's a good chance you'll live. Yeah. Um, because yikes, or or just you know, if you if it rips across your skin here or any other place, that it's not instantly fatal. Because the whole spill your guts out thing is very much a slashing thing. Even then, just the fact like you can survive, people survive getting shot in the sternum and stuff and getting stabbed in the sternum, usually with medical help. But like But no one's surviving a fuck ton of arsenic and then also um being shot. Yeah, if you if you walk down to the basement to go shoot a guy, it's not gonna be like, and I fired four times and missed him. And I was like, nah, that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:40

You know, like yeah, his book is published. Like you can go read his account of it. I read pieces of it. That's so um, I actually I have a couple of quotes for you from the book that I meant to put in here, but I was having such a fun time like watching your face. I mean, telling you this, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:56

It makes way more sense that like four big guys drug you out into the snow and shot you.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:02

Okay, so this is this is this is an excerpt from from the book itself. We decided that poison was the surest means of killing him without leaving any trace of murder. In our house, uh, we chose the the place of execution, which was the basement, and I was fitting up an apartment in the basement which lent itself admirably to the accomplishment of our scheme. We agreed to give Rasputin a sufficient dose of cyanide.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:24

Okay, so cyanide not not arsenic.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:27

My bad, I had I had the wrong one. Cyanide of potassium to kill him instantly. I was to remain alone with him while he was in my house, and the others would stand by to come to my aid if needed. And then later, because he would not die, apparently. The devil who was dying of poison, who had a bullet in his heart, must have been raised from the dead by the powers of evil. There was something appalling and monstrous in his diabolical refusal to die. Bro, just say you missed.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:57

Yeah. Yeah, just be like I shot him in the chest and it didn't go through his heart, but it like pierced part of his lung, and he was still alive, and then was thrashing about, and so I plugged him in the dome. Like, that's what happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:12

It's the headshot one for me because we know.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:17

Not with a bullet that big.

unknown 1:55:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:18

This is 1916. Those bullets are huge.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:20

Yeah, guys are carrying around like 44s and 45s, and right, nobody's this is before they realize that a faster bullet is deadlier. Yeah. So that everything is like a fucking giant led shot. And you know, like the fucking old Colts that shot this like government round that was giant, and you're just like, why? What are you shooting?

SPEAKER_00 1:55:41

I know enough about guns to know that in 1916 those bullets were funken.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:47

Or they were tiny.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:48

Or oh yeah, or they were itty bitty.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:49

Or they were like purse gun and they carried no weight behind them.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:52

But nah, you you you can see the size of the bullet hole in Rasputin's head. Uh so yeah, that's that was that was rah-rah Rasputin, guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:05

It makes a lot more sense at the end of the song when they're like rah-rah rasputin.

unknown 1:56:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:10

I'm gonna think about those gunshots every time now.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:13

I know, right? Shit, you didn't know. I didn't know he was married. I didn't know he had children. I had no clue. I thought that he was just some dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:22

Like I lit like legit going into this, like I was like I said, at the very, very beginning of this, I was coming from it from the Dreamworks perspective of that man is a lich.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:30

Yeah. Dancing around his fucking bone factory with this like orange or or green, like fluorescent green. Yeah, because it looks like all nuclear the whole time. It's just like here's the I've sold my soul for this little vial.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:44

That's Vidania on you, your grace. I can still sing every song from that movie, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:48

Crazy. Also, like the entire soundtrack to that movie was the lady who sings the like ending theme for that. They they gave her Once Upon a December. They gave her a title in Rolling Stone magazine and a couple of other things, which is the most unknown platinum artist that you've never heard of. And because like she was a major, if you've ever in the 90s or 2000s, if you walked into an elevator, you would hear her music playing in the elevator because so many of her songs were royalty-free.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:16

Dude, fucking Dreamworks hit it big with the music because Prince of Egypt was also like Yeah, yeah, oh my god, what a good movie! So, yeah, that was that that was what I that was the image of Russ Buten that I had going into this. Yeah. And now that I have I have done, you know, a weekend's worth of research on this and am by no means an expert at all. But we're he was just kind of a slutty frat, bro, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:41

Forever we're gonna be like, every time we hear that, you know, they've got his dick in a jar, and we're like sea cucumber. It's a sea cucumber. Everybody who hears this now will know. Also, um, for like further study, um, Behind the Bastards did a really good one on Did they?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:56

Yeah. I would love to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:58

That's the only reason I know anything about this, is because he did a whole thing on Nicholas.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:03

Not on Resputin, but on Tsar Nicholas and what kind of a dude, Czar Nicholas, like I looked at so I've I've I've known like what the royal family looked like. I'm very, very familiar with the royal family side of this, which is you know how I'm a little bit biased towards Alexander and or Alexandra and Nicholas. Like, you know, that was a love story, a tragic one. A little toxic. But you know, they loved each other, and that's that's that is the only basis I had for this. And then coming at it from the Rasputin angle, yeah. Resputin Rasputin didn't want any of that smoke. That bitch was dramatic.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:35

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for this.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:38

I'm gonna You are welcome. I enjoyed it so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:42

Yeah, geez, man. Well, if uh if you are listening to this, please like and subscribe. Uh again, apologies for uh missing that week of posting and the fact that I can't see any of you who are not on YouTube, so so we apologize. I can only see the downloads, which not everybody downloads, so like it's not your fault that it didn't go. Uh yeah, I've pushed the button, I've put in all the tags, and then Sunday morning I had to go boop publish. Like, because it just didn't do it, and I was like, okay, whatever. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:19

Thank you guys for joining us on this episode. Yeah. I had a lot of fun with this, I really did. Like it, like I'm not exaggerating when I said that that Anastasia was the movie, the Dreamworks movie, was like a very formative part of my childhood. Like, not only like costuming-wise, but just kind of you know music and animation and yeah, stylistically. DreamWorks really only knew how to do like draw like two men.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:45

Yeah. But they did, you know what I really always enjoyed about. He was a lot of people's like but so they always did things like trains and cars and guns and stuff with such incredible detail. Like the only one that I can really give that level of a word to was like the cowboy Bebop movie.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:07

Because man, but that was so accurate that my dad watched that with me, having never seen any any anime, and was able to name the guns.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:15

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:16

And then he was like, that's a real gun. I was like, Yeah, they do a lot of like really good work on this.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:21

All right. Thank you guys for joining us. We do appreciate you. I had a blast, Ryan. I I think you had fun.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:28

If your hair is any story.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:29

Oh, I I've never even brushed it this morning. I got like two-day beard. I think I'm wearing some kind of flax tunic.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:38

You you are very you are a little Robin Hood today. Yeah. Not gonna lie. All right. You guys have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:45

Bye.