Figure from the Museum of Ventura County collection.

The monk from Hell. Maybe not!

G.Y. Rasputin was an obscure Siberian monk with great ambitions and a charismatic and hypnotic talent. He made his way to St. Petersburg in 1904, where he quickly gathered a large following with his “cures”. Empress Alexandra, desperate to heal her son’s hemophilia, had him brought to court. His treatment was evidently miraculous and the Empress was under his spell from that time until his murder twelve years later. He was seen by many as the cause of the imperial collapse.

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