When I tell you to think of the wildest life anyone’s ever had, what comes to mind? Mick Jagger partying gig after gig? Maybe a world traveler like Anthony Bourdain. Well, I don’t know about you, but when I think of a place where people liked to let loose and party I immediately think of Russia in the early 1900s.
Okay, maybe not, but it was home to Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, nowadays mostly known by his last name, Rasputin. Rasputin grew up in a rural village, never learning to read or write. He was always seen as a bit of a strange one. People from his village would often speak of him as if he had some sort of supernatural power.
In any case, he underwent a religious conversion when he was 18 years old and moved into a monastery. I know, right now you are thinking: “Okay, so he was a weird illiterate kid who went on to learn about Christianity, that isn’t even interesting, let alone wild.” But let me finish, here’s where it gets crazy.
While he was at the monastery he developed his own version of Christianity. He said one could only be nearest to god when they felt “Holy Passionless.”. How does one experience this? It’s simple, you must live as debaucherously as possible. Really get out there, drinking, orgies, the works.
So, Rasputin formed a sex cult at the age of 18; Big deal, right? I mean, who doesn’t? Well, that wasn’t the end for our monk. He left home and wandered around as a homeless beggar. During this period, he gained a reputation as a holy man who could heal the sick and tell the future. Somehow, he found himself in St. Petersburg among high ranking clergy. Their fascination with the occult meant the strange magic homeless guy was a perfect dinner guest, I guess.
Anyway, then he went on to meet Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra. Their son had hemophilia and was bleeding badly. Rasputin somehow managed to stop this bleeding and as a result, gained the favor of the royal family. He told them their entire well-being was linked to him, and if anything, bad were to ever happen to old Rasputin their own demise would surely follow.
So, Rasputin stuck around as an advisor. Of course, he still had all his wild habits and soon news of the Czar’s kinky friend got out. Eventually, Nicholas had enough, and he decided Rasputin must be killed to stop any more scandals from reaching the press. Rasputin was then poisoned and shot twice. Except he survived. So they tied him up and threw him in an icy river. He died that time.
Just as predicted, 15 months after his death a rebellion ended up killing the entire royal family. And that concludes the saga of the mad monk who somehow went from a poor village to being a royal fortune teller.
