Take a look back through history and you'll
find no shortage of famous figures who blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. Think
Leonidas I of Sparta or King Midas - both were 100% real, but it's safe to say many of the
stories surrounding them probably weren't. Most of these titans of times gone by
only rose to true world fame after their tales were corrupted and endlessly
embelished, long after their deaths. But every once in a while, someone
emerges from the haze of history whose dazzling deeds are so inexplicable they
become legends within their own lifetime. The subject of today's video is one such man, and his story is quite simply one of
the most unbelievable I've ever shared on this channel. It's hard to know where to
begin really, so how about some highlights. 1. He was born a peasant, but rose to control the whole of Russia
2. He had the power to heal the sick and the best doctors of his time couldn't explain how he did it
3. He survived multiple assassination attempts, including being poisoned, stabbed, and shot
4. He had the power of prophecy, and made several bold predictions that subsequently came true
5. He slept with thousands of women, despite never bathing
6. He brought down a 300-year old Royal dynasty almost singlehandedly
7. And, most importantly of all, his pickled penis is preserved
in a Russian museum to this day This is the larger than life
story of Grigori Rasputin, or as I like to call him, the magical sex
wizard who brought down the Russian monarchy. Rasputin's story is one of the most outlandish
ever told, but his beginnings were about as humble as it gets. He was born a peasant in 1869
in the tiny Siberian village of Pokrovskoye. He had seven siblings, but only Rasputin
made it to adulthood. Very little is known about those early years beyond the
fact that, like most of his peers, he received little in the way of education.
It's likely he could neither read nor write until adulthood, and he was regularly
in trouble with the local authorities thanks to a penchant for committing minor
crimes and a major appetite for hard drink and soft women. By 18 he was married and
would soon raise 3 children of his own. So far so utterly boring - at this point
in our story Rasputin's life wasn't all that dissimilar to thousands of other Russian
men of the era. But in 1897 at the age of 28, he decided to take a pilgrimage to the St.
Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye. It was a journey that would dramatically alter both
his life and the course of Russian history. Rasputin wasn't an especially religious man
prior to the pilgrimage, and his reasons for undertaking a 500 mile round trip in the name
of a God he wasn't all that well acquainted with are unknown. Some sources claim it
was an excuse to make a swift exit from Pokrovskoye after being caught stealing a
horse - but I say that the heavy drinking, wantonly womanising Rasputin took the pilgrimage
because lads weekends hadn't been invented yet. Whatever the truth, when Rasputin returned
some months later he was a man transformed by religious fervour. Well, I say
'transformed' - he still drank like a sailor and chased women night and day, he
just did a lot more praying in his downtime. Over the following few years, he travelled
Russia extensively, styling himself as a wandering holy man. He also developed his
own unique brand of religion built on the foundations of an outlawed Christian sect
known as the Khlysts, whose murky practices were rumoured to included mass orgies and
self flagellation (not at the same time). For his part, Rasputin preached that sin could
only be overcome if it was first understood, which basically gave him free rein to do all
the fun stuff life has to offer in the name of theological research. He also taught that it
was possible to get closer to God by achieving a state of sexual exhaustion, preferably by having
as much sex as possible with Rasputin himself. Bearing in mind that he was one of the
scariest-looking individuals to ever live and was famous for never washing and therefore
smelled like a badger's arsehole, you might be surprised to learn that, somehow, this strange
strategy for seducing women actually worked.. Rasputin soon gathered a large number
of followers, and there were growing whispers that, during his time in the Siberian
wilderness, he’d developed certain… abilities. Some said he could read minds, others that he
could heal the sick with the touch of a hand, and all agreed that there was
something otherworldly about the man. By the early 1900s, he'd caused enough of a stir
to attract the attention of several important people in the Russian Orthodox Church. Eventually,
those lofty connections led him to St. Petersburg. Rasputin's arrival in the then-Russian
capital was perfectly timed. The city's aristocracy were positively obsessed
with all things occult and supernatural, so when the badger-scented Siberian turned
up amid rumours of magical powers in 1905 armed with a soul-piercing stare,
everyone wanted a piece of him. He received invitations from many of the most
influential and affluent families in the city. Rung by rung, he hauled himself up St.
Petersburg's teetering social ladder until, in November 1905, he reached the final boss
- he was invited to meet Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of all of Russia and patriarch
of the centuries old Romanov family, and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, the Tsarina. The encounter was planned for just a few minutes, but the self-proclaimed mystic worked his
unique brand of black magic on the monarchs, and it was well over an hour
before he emerged from the palace. It's often said that people believe what they want
to believe, and that no doubt helped Rasputin win over the Russian royals. You see, the Tsar and
Tsarina were absolutely desperate for the rumours about Rasputin to be true. Because if he really
could heal the sick, that meant he had the power to save their son, Alexei, who also happened
to be the heir to the entire Russian empire. Alexei suffered from haemophilia, a rare
genetic disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly. That might sound like
a fairly minor ailment, but sufferers live their entire lives on a knife-edge, where even a
small injury can lead to devastating blood loss. Haemophilia is a serious illness even
today, but in 20th century Russia it was essentially a death sentence - the
average life expectancy was just 13. Alexei was the youngest of 5 children, but since
his elder siblings were all inconveniently female, the line of succession relied solely
on his survival. In other words, if Rasputin could keep Alexei alive, he wasn't
just saving the life of a treasured son, he was safeguarding the future
of the entire Romanov dynasty. And it wouldn't be long before the holy man was given a chance to put his
magic where his mouth was. As an interesting aside, at the time haemophilia
was so common among European royalty that it was often referred to as the 'royal disease'.
Historians have subsequently traced the rogue genes back to a single 'patient zero'
- none other than the so-called ‘grandmother of Europe’ Queen Victoria. She was
a carrier, and her offspring spread haemophilia around Europe's aristocracy,
including the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia (Queen Victoria was
Alexei Romanov's great grandmother). Anyway, Rasputin was duly summoned to use his
magic powers on the boy, and here's where things start to get a little weird. It's easy to dismiss
Rasputin as a fraud - a charismatic chancer who somehow bluffed his way to the top. But whatever
hocus pocus he employed on the Russian heir... it actually worked. And not just once
- Alexei's chief physician would later recall that whenever the boy was ill,
Rasputin would turn up at his bedside, spit, and Alexei would recover in no time. In one of the more famous incidents, the prince
suffered internal bleeding during a bumpy carriage ride back from a hunting trip. Before long he'd
fallen so gravely ill that a priest was summoned to perform his last rites and a hasty telegram was
penned announcing the boy's death to the world. Rasputin was back home in Siberia at the
time, and the desperate Tsarina sent him a telegram of her own asking him to pray for
her son. Despite being hundreds of miles away, Rasputin replied explaining that
God had personally assured him the prince would live so long as no
doctors interfered in his recovery. I don't know about you, but if
I was a fraudulent faith healer, getting rid everyone with a modicum of medical
knowledge would be the last thing I'd do. But the Tsarina obliged, and, against all common
sense, Alexei began to recover almost immediately. Even today, more than 100 years later, nobody
really knows exactly what Rasputin was doing to improve Alexei’s health. It could be he was
leveraging knowledge of internal bleeding cases in horses from his time in Siberia, while others
believe his cures relied on some form of hypnosis. Still others put his miraculous healing
powers down to nothing more than simple psychology - by dismissing the Prince's army of
doctors and calming his mother's frayed nerves, Rasputin may simply have created a calmer,
quieter atmosphere more conducive to recovery. Add a powerful placebo effect
into the mix and who knows... If that's all a bit vague for you, don’t worry,
I have a slightly more concrete theory. Aspirin was a ubiquitous painkiller in Russia at the
time, and would almost certainly have been prescribed for Alexei. But it turns out that
aspirin thins the blood and is basically oral kryptonite for haemophiliacs. That little
medical factoid wasn't known to science until a good 50 years after Rasputin's
death, but it may be that by regularly recommending Alexei's doctor's be ignored in
favour of the healing power of God's grace, Rasputin was unwittingly protecting the prince
from the harmful effects of ingesting aspirin. Of course, there's always the possibility
that Rasputin really had gained magical healing powers by shagging his way
around Russia and refusing to bathe, but I'm going to go ahead and
put that one down as a long shot. Ultimately it doesn't really matter how he was
doing it. By ensuring blood flowed through the prince’s veins - and more importantly
by keeping it there whenever he got so much as paper cut - Rasputin gained the
unshakeable loyalty of the Tsar and Tsarina. Still, Rasputin wasn't one to take chances, and so
to truly seal his position in the royal household, this big-dicked mystic made a prophecy, claiming
that his destiny was linked with theirs and that if anything untoward ever happened to
him, the house of Romanov would fall. Again, it's easy to scoff
at such an obvious ploy... except the prophecy would indeed later come
true - but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Tsar Nicholas II named Rasputin as his official
lamplighter, a role which saw him look after the royal household’s religious icons and gave him
unparalleled access to Russia's rulers. Rasputin made the most of his position, and before
long he wasn't just healing Prince Alexei, he was advising on matters of state
and influencing foreign policy. But his elevated status had done nothing
to smooth Rasputin's rough manners, nor diminish any of his various... appetites.
Rumours abounded that the mystic would accept sexual favours and other bribes in return for
putting in a good word with the Tsar and his wife, and when he couldn't get what he wanted by abusing
his newfoundpower, he simply took it by force. Rasputin was accused of rape on multiple
occasions, including by the governess who looked after Alexei's older sisters. But
20th century Russia's version of the MeToo movement never really got off the ground.
Despite the weight of claims against him, including some from within the royal
family itself, Rasputin was untouchable. The governess was fired, and his
other accusers simply ignored. Even so, a growing faction of religious and
political leaders were becoming increasingly concerned about Rasputin's influence in the
palace. Several senior members of the Russian Orthodox Church openly denounced him as a
heretic, and Prime Minister Peter Stolypin tried to get him exiled. The Russian secret
police - a precursor of the KGB - opened an investigation into Rasputin's conduct
which found, among many other things, that he'd exposed himself in one of
St. Petersburg's best restaurants. In 1914 while visiting his wife (who for
some reason hadn't divorced him yet), Rasputin was stabbed in the stomach by a noseless
peasant woman who believed he was the antichrist. It was the kind of wound that would typically be
fatal, and after somehow escaping his attacker on foot, Rasputin was left in a coma that
nobody expected him to wake from. But he did. And before long he was back in the capital,
where his power was about to reach its pinnacle. Just a few weeks before Rasputin's near death
experience, a little known Austro-Hungarian royal was visited by an assassin of his own. The royal
in question was known to his buddies as Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and, unlike Rasputin, he didn’t
survive the hit. As you're no doubt aware, Franz Ferdinand's death set off a chain of events that
culminated in the start of the First World War. In July 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, and
Tsar Nicholas II left St. Petersburg to personally lead his troops on the battlefields of Europe.
Leaving only his wife behind to run the country. Alexandra had always been more swayed by Rasputin, and without her husband around she gave her
mind to the mystic entirely. Within the space of 18 months she'd appointed and dismissed no
fewer than four prime ministers, five ministers of the interior, and three ministers of war,
with Rasputin guiding her hand at every turn. It was soon an open secret on the streets of St.
Petersburg that, along with accepting Rasputin’s advice, the Tsarina had also invited him into her
bed. Admittedly there isn't any hard evidence that the affair ever happened, but considering how
highly the Tsarina regarded Rasputin - not to mention that his religious ideology was to screw
every living thing in Russia - it’s difficult not to believe the rumours. There's also the fact
that renowned scholar Boney M famously sang 'Ra Ra Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen.' And
if that isn't proof then I don't know what is. Regardless of whether or not they were actually
sleeping together, Russia’s greatest love machine had clearly become the true power behind
the throne - the Wormtongue to Alexandra's Théoden. But every Wormtongue eventually
meets his Gandalf, and in December 1916, a group of noblemen decided it was time to
saddle up Greyfax and go drive the demon out. They were led by Prince Felix Yusupov
(husband of the Tsar's niece), Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (the Tsar's first cousin),
and prominent politician Vladimir Purishkevich. Of course, unlike Gandalf the Grey none of
these men actually had any magical powers, and so they were forced to chose a
more prosaic approach - to save Russia, they were going to have to
murder Grigori Rasputin. But as we’ve already seen, Rasputin
was not an easy man to kill. He was invited to Yusopov's palace in
St. Petersburg, where he was taken to a receiving room in the basement. There, he was
given tea and a platter of small cakes. Which all sounds very civil as far as murders go...
except the cakes had been laced with cyanide. Rasputin was oblivious to the danger, and soon
enough he was tucking into the poisonous pastries. But when he was finished, rather than, you know,
drop dead, Rasputin merely asked if Yusopov had anything stronger than tea to wash down the cakes.
Yusopov fetched some Madeira wine - also laced with cyanide - but despite guzzling three glasses,
Rasputin didn't develop so much as heartburn. To this day we still have absolutely no idea how
Rasputin ate enough Cyanide to kill an entire village and lived - though in a very recent
study rats were fed both cyanide and garlic and survived. Turns out the sulfur content
of garlic can combat cyanide in the body, and every day Rasputin ate a
frightening amount of garlic. Anyway, since the poison had failed to, well,
poison him, Yusopov pulled out his pistol and shot Rasputin squarely in the chest,
and that finally seemed to do the trick. Rasputin’s body was stripped, and one of
the co conspirators drove to Rasputin's house wearing the dead man's clothes to make it
look as though he'd returned home as planned. Next it was time to dispose of the corpse. That
was Yusopov's job, but when he went back down to the cellar, something rather unexpected happened
- Rasputin stood up and punched him in the face. Yusopov fled the basement with a naked and very
much not-dead Rasputin in hot pursuit. A naked man running is never a pretty sight, and the
bloody, grizzled Rasputin was no exception. But all the commotion brought Yusopov's friends
to the scene, and more shots were fired. When the smoke had cleared, Rasputin was once more
on the ground, this time with a bullet through his forehead. It's safe to assume Yusopov and Co were
a little rattled at this point, so they spent the next few minutes kicking the crap out of the
corpse, just to make sure it really *was* a corpse. Then they dumping the body in a nearby
frozen river, by way of a fishing hole. According to some reports, despite having been poisoned
(twice), shot multiple times, and beaten to a bloody pulp, Rasputin was still moving when
he disappeared beneath the silent black water. He was found the following day, pressed up
against the underside of the ice as though trying to break free, his still open eyes staring
blankly up towards the sky. The mad monk was dead. Meanwhile on the battlefields of Europe,
things were going badly for the Russians. Nicholas II was turning out to be an
absolutely useless military commander, and a series of serious tactical and logistical
blunders saw his troops lose battle after battle. The situation back home wasn't much better either.
The country had been crippled by the war effort, and there was widespread hunger and discontent.
Confidence in the monarchy was at an all time low, and despite trying to hang onto power, in
1917, the Tsar was forced to abdicate when angry demonstrators took over large swathes of
the capital backed by members of the Russian armed forces. The 300 year rule of the Romanovs was
at an end, and the Russian revolution had begun. The Tsar and his family were held under house
arrest, where they would remain for about a year. During which time the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized control of the
Russian government. On the 17th July 1918, Bolshevik soldiers broke into a basement where
the Romanovs were being held and started firing. They didn't stop until the former Tsar and Tsarina
and every single one of their children were dead. At the start of this video, I mentioned that
Rasputin was a man who blurred the lines between myth and reality, and there are certainly many
aspects of this tale that stretch credulity. Certain elements are widely accepted fact
- Rasputin really did rise from nothing to have a huge influence over the Russian
monarchy, and he certainly played a large role in its eventual downfall. But others are
contested. Some historians believe details of Rasputin's debaucherous lifestyle were
exaggerated in order to discredit him, and it seems a fairly safe bet that the events
of his murder have been… spiced up a little bit. Oh, and for those of you still wondering when the hell I'm going to get to Rasputin’s
penis, don't worry - the wait is over. The fate of Rasputin's pecker remains a
surprisingly hot topic even now. According to one story, it was removed not long after his death
under orders from Grand Duchess Tatiana, daughter of the Tsar, who was one of the many women
who claimed to have been raped by the mystic. As of today, you can find pickled penises
purported to belong to Rasputin in multiple museums all over Russia. Of course, there
is a slight logical phallus...y with that statement. Despite his reputation
as a lover of epic proportions, so far as I know, God only gave Rasputin
*one* penis with which to do his holy work. Over the years, several of the
appendages have been tested to determine their providence. At least
one turned out to be a sea cucumber, and another - a 12 inch behemoth of frankly
frightening proportions - was found to have belonged not to Rasputin,
but to a poorly endowed horse. The truth is, while it's still
widely reported that Rasputin's penis was severed after his death,
like so many things about his life, this one is probably just a myth - we know
for certain that the offending appendage was still attached during the autopsy, and
there’s evidence it was later removed. By most accounts, Grigori Rasputin was a
pretty terrible human being, but his story really is fascinating. And if nothing else,
it remains proof of something many of us have suspected for a long time - that you don't need
to have good personal hygiene to go far in life. Thanks for watching.
Just found this video, made two-weeks ago, today and watched up to the quote cited. I’ve always been a little puzzled-curious about Rasputin. If anyone thinks he is top 2000 genius candidate mind, please comment.
Note: Presently I’m audio-books listening to Gunter Grass’ A4/1959 The Tin Drum, about Oscar, a psychiatric patient, who tells his entire reaction existence story, about how he went on his journey, from before birth to his psychiatric days, with a small book he made by shuffling pages of Rasputin together with pages of Goethe’s Elective Affinities.
He says that Rasputin is one who lets women fall in love with him, and Goethe is one who lets himself fall in love with women.