Overview
- Grigori Rasputin, a peasant-born mystic, gained access to the Romanov court by 1906 through his reported success easing heir Alexei's hemophilia, earning Empress Alexandra's trust.
- His wartime influence grew contentious within Russia's elite, while long-circulating allegations of affairs, including with Alexandra, remain unsubstantiated.
- Accounts center on a December 29, 1916 plot by Felix Yusupov and fellow nobles at the Moika Palace, where cyanide-laced cakes and wine reportedly failed to fell him.
- The conspirators then shot Rasputin and later disposed of his body in the frozen Neva River, according to the widely cited assassination narrative.
- Later forensic reporting notes no water in his lungs, leaving the precise cause of death unresolved as the monarchy fell and the Bolsheviks seized power within a year.