Andrew Cook - To Kill Rasputin

The body was then carried back into the house to await the return of the car (presumably after removing the women). It was put into the car and driven out to Kristovski Island and thrown into a hole in the ice of the Little Neva. Yusupov went to the Sergei Palace with Dmitri Pavlovich and stayed there, while it was given out that he had left for the Crimea.

Stopford is careful not to examine the obvious anomalies in this account, such as the inquest’s finding or common-sense ballistics, which make nonsense of Yusupov’s claim that the two wounds caused by Purishkevich’s shots were in the back of the head and in the forehead. The Autopsy Report and the autopsy photographs make it clear that there were three bullet wounds; one to the left-hand side of the chest, a second to the right-hand side of the back, and the third to the forehead. 4

By contrast, Rasputin’s family tell a very different version of events. 5According to Rasputin’s daughter Maria, Yusupov asked Rasputin to accompany him back to his palace as his wife Irina had a severe headache. When they arrive at the palace, Yusupov tells Rasputin that Irina ‘is having a party… she somehow manages to get through even though her headaches are so painful’. 6Yusupov suggests that they wait in the downstairs room, where he offers Rasputin the poisoned wine, cakes, bonbons and sweat-meats. Rasputin, who ‘had never cared for sweets’, 7declines the food but accepts the Madeira. When Rasputin becomes impatient of waiting any longer for Irina, Yusupov says he will go upstairs and get her. Instead he returns, with a pistol given to him by Dmitri Pavlovich, Followed by Dr Lazovert, Dmitri Pavlovich, ‘Two other men’, 8Sukhotin and Purishkevich. Rasputin is then attacked en masse by the seven men. As he struggles to get up off the floor, Yusupov fires a single shot into his head and Rasputin falls backwards onto a white bearskin fur rug. There follows an even more severe beating, after which they leave him for dead and return to the study above. While there, they hear noises on the stairs and rush out to find that Rasputin is not only still alive but has managed to crawl up the stairs and through the side door into the yard outside.

Purishkevich then runs out into the yard in pursuit and fires four shots, although the account does not say how many hit Rasputin or where. The body is then taken away by car to Petrovski Island and thrown into the river. Despite his serious wounds, Rasputin is apparently still alive when he hits the water and dies from drowning. Of all the rival accounts, this one is most at odds with the forensic facts. The Autopsy Report not only concludes that the shot to the forehead was the third shot, not the first, but affirms that, although there was a small amount of water in the lungs, he did not die from drowning. 9One of the two ‘other men’ is named as Paul Stepanov, although no one by this name was known to be an associate of Yusupov or indeed anyone else even vaguely connected with the story. The claim that Rasputin did not eat the food is, however, supported by the Autopsy Report, and was one of the issues taken up by Russian historian and playwright Edvard Radzinski eighty-four years after the murder in his biography Rasputin – The Last Word. 10While Radzinski’s account is very much in line with the facts of the case, he offers a very different ending to the traditionally accepted story.

According to Radzinski, Yusupov shot Rasputin in the chest with Dmitri Pavlovich’s Browning pistol. Having left him for dead in the basement dining room, the conspirators returned to the study upstairs to celebrate with the two women whose presence was referred to in the initial Police Report. It was then decided that the two ladies should be taken home, and they were taken down the staircase to the small doorway and out to the car by Dmitri Pavlovich. While all this was going on, Yusupov had gone down to the basement and discovered Rasputin was not dead. Rushing back up the stairs he shouted, ‘Shoot! He’s getting away!’ By this time, Rasputin had regained consciousness, crawled up the staircase and made a last-ditch attempt to flee across the courtyard. Purishkevich ran out behind him and fired two shots, both of which missed. Fortunately, Dmitri Pavlovich was already in the courtyard and fired two shots with the Browning pistol that had been returned to him by Yusupov – ‘The first shot brought Rasputin to a halt; the second one, in the back of the head, laid him out on the wet snow’. 11

According to Radzinski, it was Dmitri Pavlovich who had the most convincing personal motives for killing Rasputin – it was Rasputin who had ruined the prospects of him marrying the Grand Duchess Olga, the Tsar’s daughter, by telling Nicholas of his homosexuality. It was also Rasputin who had caused a rift in the Romanov family in which he had grown up and also in his father’s immediate family. 12As impeccable as the motives sited by Radzinski are, the theory again falls flat when confronted by the forensic evidence.

If Dmitri Pavlovich had indeed fired the second and third shots with the same Browning pistol that he had initially lent to Yusupov to fire the first shot, then one would expect all three bullet wounds to have been caused by bullets of the same calibre. However, the Autopsy Report, as we have already noted, states quite clearly that ‘The bullets came from revolvers of various calibre’. 13Furthermore, the Autopsy Report and accompanying photographs show that the bullet wound to the head ‘hit the victim on the forehead’, 14and not ‘in the back of the head’ 15as maintained by Radzinski. Most persuasive of all, in terms of eliminating this theory, are the conclusions of subsequent forensic reviews of the 1916 autopsy evidence, the most recent of which 16indicates that the fatal forehead wound could not have been inflicted by the Browning pistol Dmitri Pavlovich had in his possession that night.

In the same year that Radzinski published his Last Word biography, another Russian playwright, Oleg Shishkin, also published a book, 17setting out his views on Rasputin’s murder. Shishkin began by examining the rumours abounding at the time of the murder that there had been British involvement. Drawing on Sir George Buchanan’s account of his audience with the Tsar during which Nicholas’s suspicions regarding the involvement of a British subject were aired, he began the search for the unnamed individual. He eventually concluded that Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare, the Head of the British Intelligence Mission, was the mysterious college friend of Yusupov, and that he had fired the fatal shot into Rasputin’s forehead. Shishkin correctly deduced that Purishkevich’s account of firing the fatal shot from behind was not compatible with the autopsy evidence. Shishkin further hypothesised that, having been told by Purishkevich of the intention to ‘liquidate’ Rasputin, Hoare turned up at the Yusupov Palace on the night of the murder and entered by the side door of number 92. 18Having been shown Rasputin’s corpse by Yusupov, Hoare then supposedly left by the unlocked side door through which he had entered. This, in Shishkin’s view, gave Rasputin a last-ditch opportunity for escape. When Hoare was almost at the gate, Rasputin came running out of the unlocked door into the courtyard, pursued at a distance by Purishkevich. His failed attempts to hit Rasputin from behind left Hoare with no alternative. In order to prevent Rasputin’s escape, he fired at the figure looming towards him out of the shadows, fatally hitting him in the forehead.

In addition to the serious doubts that must be raised (and which will be further explored in chapter 11) as to whether Rasputin was ever physically able to leave the basement dining room, climb the stairs and run or stagger across the courtyard, the identity of Hoare as the mystery man must also be seriously questioned.