Rasputin murdered

© eskoff A Russian myth: Grigorij Jefimowitsch Rasputin

A man from the most humble of circumstances, son of a Siberian peasant family, the wandering prophet and miracle healer Grigori Efimovich Rasputin is murdered on 30 December 1916 in St. Petersburg. Since his sudden appearance in the Russian capital city shortly after the turn of the century, his sensational abilities had not remained unknown to the court of the Tsar. Therefore Rasputin was summoned to Tsar Nicholas II Alexandrovich, whose son Alexis suffered from the „bleeding sickness“. Rasputin succeeded in halting the imperial heir’s life-threatening bleeding. Soon he gained absolute favour with Tsarina Alexandra and the admiration of the Tsar. Rasputin gained more and more influence at court. But he shocked a considerable portion of the Russian nobility with his debauched lifestyle and an alleged intimate relationship with the Tsarina. Eventually he was ascribed much of the blame for the defeat in the war against Japan, the revolution of 1905, and the oncoming Russian collapse in the First World War. Many wished him dead, but only after several assassination attempts was a handful of conspirators – among them a nephew of the Tsar – able to lure him into a trap and carry out his murder.