Andrew Cook - To Kill Rasputin

The old round of visits to Tsarskoye Selo recommenced. This was his heyday; his position had never been more assured. Yet instead of growing fat and complacent he behaved like a man with hounds at his heels. Never exactly well organised, in a matter of months he adopted what we now call a ‘chaotic lifestyle’. He stayed up all night and slept late, and spent the waking hours receiving petitioners and followers, visiting friends and gossiping. Increasingly, there were meetings about deals and favours and money, the whole merry round accompanied by glass after glass of Madeira. Rasputin visited bath-houses daily, usually managed to pick up a prostitute somewhere, and was rarely sober. He liked sweet wine and gypsy music, and would dance himself into a frenzy every night if he got the chance. Night life in the capital was sophisticated and entertaining for those who could afford the Villa Rhode or the restaurant at the Astoria, where the ‘marble stairs and plate glass windows, thick red carpets and graceful palms, gave it a glow of comfort unknown in any other hotel in Petrograd [ sic ]’. 47Rasputin was frequently seen there; and years later, the head waiter at the Villa Rhode would recall his disgusting table manners. 48After an evening at a night club or a restaurant, he often took his entourage across the Neva towards the Islands, the wilderness, the gypsies – and champagne.

The gypsies were famous; people were in awe of their singing. Bruce Lockhart was stationed in Moscow, and, during his first few days there in 1912, his host at a spectacular ball got up a small party that would go on to Streilna, a night club far from the city centre, to hear the gypsies.

This gypsy music, in fact, is more intoxicating, more dangerous, than opium, or women, or drink, and although champagne is a necessary adjunct to the enjoyment, there is a plaintiveness in its appeal which to the Slav and Celtic races is almost irresistible. It breaks down all reserves of restraint. It will drive a man to the moneylenders or even to crime… It is very costly. It has been responsible for the bulk of my debts. Yet tomorrow, if I had thousands and the desire to squander them, there is no entertainment in New York, Paris, Berlin or London or indeed, anywhere in the world, which I should choose in preference to a gypsy evening… 49

The British diplomat is unconsciously describing a shared passion, for Rasputin, whom he despised, was as much addicted to gypsy music as he was.

As for the deals and favours, Rasputin was in a position to provide plenty of those. Yusupov, who is not to be trusted in these matters, wrote about seeing a chest full of little parcels wrapped in newspaper in the flat on Gorokhovaya Street in 1916.

‘Surely that isn’t all money?’ I asked.

‘Of course it is – nothing but bank-notes; I got ’em today,’ he answered without hesitation.

‘Who gave them to you?’

‘Various kind people. I just fixed up a little affair, and out of gratitude they made a donation to the Church.’ 50

It is plausible enough. For as long as Rasputin dominated the Tsar and Tsarina, placemen appeared at the head of the Synod, and later in key positions in government, and money certainly changed hands. Bruce Lockhart saw the result:

From time to time… I saw the mark of the beast at Chelnokov’s house, where the Mayor would show me a short typewritten note requesting him to fix up the bearer in a safe and comfortable job in the Cities Union. The note was signed in an illiterate scrawl ‘GR’ – Grigorii Rasputin. The requests were invariably turned down by the sturdy Chelnokov. 51

Rasputin was not necessarily directly in contact with the supplicants. He was not interested in money, just in having enough of it to do what he wanted and to help others when he wanted to. From early in 1914 his long-time mistress, Akilina Laptinskaya, who had once been a nurse at Verkhoturye Monastery, acted as his ‘secretary’ and passed on to him the cash inducements provided by those who wanted favours. His friend Filippov, a banker and publisher, testified to the Extraordinary Commission in 1917:

Laptinskaya, being a person of exceptional intelligence and perseverance, was guided exclusively by mercenary considerations; various people made presents to her of specific sums on the occasion of Rasputin’s arrival or for Rasputin. And Rasputin threw her out a couple of times… on suspicion of stealing sums in the thousands. 52

There must be a go-between. Rasputin himself had to be careful because there were people watching him; Rodzyanko and most of the Okhrana were out to get some dirt on him and Djhunkovski, Head of Police at the Ministry of the Interior, was quietly employing Okhrana surveillance teams. With a rather different agenda, the Tsar still expected the Okhrana to guard Rasputin round the clock because of numerous threats to his life. One of these almost succeeded.

In 1913, Iliodor, now excommunicated from the Orthodox Church and living under his original name of Sergei Trufanov, concocted a plot. A number of prostitutes were to seduce Rasputin and castrate him. This came to nothing, because Rasputin got wise to it before it happened, but Trufanov did not give up. 53He knew that Rasputin was in Yalta, in the Crimea, advising ‘the tsars’ in the spring of 1914. Everybody knew – people were selling photos of him outside his hotel. Vyrubova visited him constantly (she was staying at the royal household’s summer palace at Livadia) and he boasted to the hotel staff about his hold over the imperial couple. In the end, Rasputin became such a tourist attraction that Nicholas had to send him away. He collected his wife and daughter, who were visiting St Petersburg, and travelled home with them to Pokrovskoe; and Iliodor knew about this, too. One of the women who had been involved in the castration plot was Khiona Gusyeva, ‘a once good-looking exprostitute now seriously disfigured by syphilis’. 54She followed Rasputin to Pokrovskoe.

On 28 June 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were shot in Sarajevo, and Rasputin came face to face with Gusyeva, in Pokrovskoe, disguised as a beggar-woman

…who asked him for money. As he put a hand in his pocket she pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the stomach, driving the blade up to the rib cage and wounding him badly. Yet as she pulled the knife back for a second blow Rasputin had strength enough left to hold her off with his stick until an angry crowd grabbed her and allowed the starets to collapse. 55

The nearest doctor was a six-hour ride away, but he came as fast as he could, and got Rasputin back over the agonising six-hour journey on bumpy roads to the hospital in Tyumen. Thanks to his sturdy constitution he survived, although he was in hospital until late August 1914. Russia by then had declared war. It is quite likely that the Tsar would have vacillated, or even kept his country out of the war, had Rasputin been around to advise him. As it was Rasputin sent telegrams – indeed, prophecies of doom: he said that if Russia entered the war the autocracy would be finished; there would be untold misery and loss of life. He was right on both counts, but his was an emotional appeal innocent of the counter-arguments: the defence of resources, and the honour of Russia, which would be forfeited if the Tsar broke promises. Grand Duke Nikolai understood these points rather better, and was there in person to present them forcefully. Popular sentiment supported war in any case. At first there was an upsurge of support for the fight and the monarchy. It did not survive Tannenberg.

Back in St Petersburg – renamed Petrograd at the start of hostilities in August 1914 – Rasputin rented a new apartment. Akilina Laptinskaya found the one in Gorokhovaya Street, which was comfortable enough to live in with his daughters and Katya, the maid, and to use for entertaining.