Rasputin Museum at Yusupov Palace

“I stood watching him drink, expecting any moment to see him collapse. But he continued slowly to sip his wine like a connoisseur. His face did not change, only from time to time he put his hand to his throat as though he had some difficulty in swallowing. He rose and took a few steps. When I asked him what was the matter, he answered: ‘Why, nothing, just a tickling in my throat. The Madeira’s good,’ he remarked; ‘give me some more.’” - Prince Felix Yusupov, recalling the night he murdered Rasputin.

In December 1916 at this palatial home in St. Petersburg, the young Prince Yusupov, heir to the greatest fortune in Russia and married to a cousin of the Romanov imperial family, spent a frustrating and probably terrifying night trying desperately to kill the nearly un-killable Grigory Rasputin.

Rasputin was a Siberian religious mystic who had become attached to the family of Tsar Nicholas II as a healer to the tsar’s hemophiliac young son and heir, Alexei. Rasputin’s particularly close relationship with the Tsarina Alexandra, coupled with his eccentric appearance and reputation for lewd and lascivious behavior in public, fueled scandalous rumors. As World War I dragged on, the country and government teetered on the brink of collapse. To make matters worse, it appeared that the tsar – already in trouble for botched and brutal responses to internal turmoil, and general incompetency on the battlefield – was taking advice from Rasputin.

By the end of 1916 a group of nobles led by Prince Yusupov decided to take matters into their own hands. Yusupov, along with conspirators Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and politician Vladimir Purishkevich, invited Rasputin to Moika Palace on the pretense of meeting his lovely young wife Irena, who was conveniently out of town. Once at the palace, Rasputin was left in a room laid out with a spread of cyanide-laced baked treats, tea, and wine. The conspirators were relieved to see Rasputin down several glasses of the poisoned wine. They became increasingly concerned, however, when the poison seemed to have no effect on the man.

Legend has it that, in the end, it took poison, three bullets, a stabbing, a terrible beating, and a final drop into the icy Malaya Nevka River to kill Rasputin. However, his autopsy showed that his death was ultimately caused from the shootings.

Yusupov and his conspirators never faced charges for the murder that so many knew they had committed, but just three months later the February Revolution forced the abdication of Nicholas II, and Yusupov fled the country. He later published several (sometimes conflicting) memoirs detailing the attempted murder and death of Rasputin, including a book titled “Lost Splendor.” Rasputin’s surviving daughter Maria unsuccessfully attempted to sue Yusupov and Pavlovich for damages related to the murder, but her claim, filed in Paris, was dismissed.

Over the years the Moika Palace has served as an educational center, and is now a cultural museum; it is notable for having survived the Revolution and Soviet years relatively intact. In the basement room where the Mad Monk was murdered, wax figures recreate his final moments. A visit to the room is included in the afternoon tours. The rest of the building is a showpiece in itself, including a rococo theater and many elegantly appointed rooms.

Rasputin’s body, fetched from the river, was originally buried on the ground of Alexander Palace, but was removed and cremated in the February 1917 uprising. Legend holds that when the flames touched his corpse, Rasputin sat upright on the pyre.