Doomed to Fail - Ep 9 - Part 1: Let's ask our Magician! - Tzar Nicholas & Alexandra

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Join us for the story of Tzar Nicholas and his wife Alex! They were the last of the Romanovs - right before their rule over Russia ended they put their trust into a Religious Maniac from Siberia - The one and only Rasputin. Was he magic? No, because Magic isn't real... but what did he know and how did he gain so much trust?Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail]  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

Hi everyone, Taylor at Doom to Vail. Today we're releasing episode 9 part 1. So as a reminder, we're releasing our older episodes that we used to do two stories at a time. Now we're just going to do one at a time. So you have a shorter episode to listen to, and we'll release them until we're done with them. We have about 26 episodes, and this is number 9. This starts off with the story of Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alex, and, of course, their BFF, Rasputin. learn more about this wizard of the night who got a lot of people to sleep with him

and kind of in the name of God. I'm honestly, I can't even pinpoint it. It's wild. And also, we have photographs of this man. He feels very ancient, but he's not that old. I mean, he's dead, but you know what I mean. So learn a little bit more about Resputin. Let us know your thoughts.

Let us know what you think. Please review us on Apple Podcasts, over here, podcasts. You can leave comments on YouTube. You can write us an email. YouTubeDevelopod at gmail.com. I hope you join. In the matter of the people of the state of California

versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B-A-0-19. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. What's your drink, tell me? So my drink is called Karkadda. All right, you can talk about it. Okay. Because I did such a great job pronouncing it.

Yeah. Okay. So let's go ahead and get started. Welcome to Doom to Fail, the podcast where Taylor uplifts. And I do whatever the opposite of that is. My name is Fars. I'm joined here by my co-host, Taylor. Hi, Taylor.

Hello. How are you? Broggy. Yeah. I found it. Yeah. And it's like two hours ahead of your time and I'm still groggy. And I don't chase kids and I'm still having a hard time. Yeah, it's Saturday. You're joining us from lovely, lovely Joshua Tree that is currently raining. Is that right? It is. We had tons of snow this week as well. We had a couple inches that stayed on the ground for a while. So it's been wild. That's incredible. I love talking about the weather and it's been wild. Yeah. Look, we're at that age where talking about the weather's kind of all we got. No, totally. I want to hear about it. Tell me what's going outside. Look at your window. Give me a play-by-play. I want to know. It's overcast. I'm looking out right now. It's overcast. It's a little bit chilly. But it's supposed to be pretty good weather later on here in Austin. I'm going to take Luna for a nice little hike and just, just giving me an outside day, I think. Very nice. I'm going to Dallas next week. So I know that's far away from you, but I will be in Texas.

Maybe I'll be there because I haven't been to Dallas and enough time to my parents are. complaining about it. So I'll join you there and we can grab dinner. Yay. Let me let me, let me, let me, let me, let me admonish my dog for a second. Okay. I'm back. Uh, Taylor, what is going to be your drink for today's episode?

Um, well, I am, shockingly going back to Russia. I don't even drink that much vodka Friday, really. Like, I feel like I've never, like, have vodka at home, but I'm going to try vodka again, but I'll tell you about it in a second, but first tell me your drink and then i'll go into my story well do you have a brand that you like oh and i feel like i don't know don't people like titos isn't that like yeah the in on trend right now it is awesome based so that would be great that's what i'm going with yeah perfect okay awesome um my drink i actually don't really totally know how to pronounce this i'm going to try it looks like it's pronounced carcada carcada

How do you spell it? K-A-R-K-A-D-E-H. And this, my story involves an Egyptian man, which is why I went to Egypt to find a traditional drink there. It is made from boiling, dried red hibiscus flowers with water. Then you chill it. Then you add sugar to it. Cool.

So it actually sounds really good. I think Starbucks kind of makes. something like this yeah it looks like a Starbucks drink it's like I'm looking at it now it's like a deep red yeah yeah exactly exactly so I'll go into details of why I picked any you know who this person is and the connection to Egypt later on but that's my drink for the day it's not alcoholic unlike your penchant for just drinking straight vodka someday I will buy vodka I'll remember and maybe next week next week I won't go to Russia but I will drink vodka anyway.

I'll just be like taking shots of vodka and like sleep all day. My husband, my family would love that. They'd be real proud of me. So Paris, we're going back to Russia again. And I know we've gone to Russia like a million times so far in this podcast. And I'm trying to think about like why do I talk about it so much? Like what is my current problem? And I think it's because so many good stories that come out of Russia, so much tragedy, so much grander.

there is just like a lot and it's so interesting because it's so isolated and it's cold and like I'm just thinking about like the idea of being in Russia and there's this woman that I really like she was the editor of Vogue of the 1960s her name's Diana Vreeland she's like another like really like over the top personality she like smoke cigarettes all the time and like was like oh like very just very funny she was from Paris and I mean I'm making like I'm moving my arms like I'm moving my arms like you know what I mean. A lot of hand waving. Yeah, a lot of hand waving. So she was great. And then there's a documentary about her called The Eye Has to Travel. And in that documentary, Angelica Houston is talking about her. And she's like, Diana was like, why worry about this and this one? There's Russia. Like Russia really big. And it's like that's like that's how I feel about it, even though like I'm not super stoked about the current state of Russia. But it's like a, I don't know how to explain it. Does that kind of make sense why it's fascinating? It is fast. I mean, their history's incredible. Yeah, the arts fantastic. They have Faberjeet eggs. Nobody else does Faberjeet eggs. Yes, exactly. I think that's good. I get you, Taylor. Faberge eggs. That's exactly right. Exactly right. So today, the couple I'm going to talk about is a couple that Marcus Parks from last podcast on the left called one of the most tragic love stories of all time because they were thrust into something. they weren't prepared for. And like, yes, that's true. But you are also the company you keep,

and they kept company with Rasputin. Yes, I knew it. The second you run up Marcus Parks, I was like, yep, yep, I know where she's going. So we're talking about the last emperor of Russia, Zarniklaus, and his wife, Alexandra. So some of the sources, I watched this amazing made-for-TV movie

called Resputin Dark Servant of Destiny and Alan Rickman plays him. It is unbelievable. So I took, I was like taking pictures literally of my screen to send them to my husband because it's so funny. And then Google Photos made me this like really like stylized collage

and just pictures of Alan Rickman as Rasputin. It's hilarious. So I'll put it on our Instagram, but he does a great job. It's everything that you could ever imagine an Alan Rickman performance to be. Ian McKellen plays our Nicholas. It's great.

So highly recommend I watch it on YouTube. I also listened to last podcast, whole series on Resputin, and read a little bit of a book that I wanted to read more of, but 25 hours long. I didn't have 25 hours to listen to it, but called about Resputin as well. So I'll put that in the notes. My favorite part of the Resputin series was when the guards had a scale for how drunk he was. Yes. drunk, very drunk, totally overcome with drink, and then Ben Kissel, at the end goes, they left one off, which is, oh, I'm just drunk enough to be good to drive right now.

Exactly. He was very drunk most of the time in this story. But I also don't want to talk about him as much as I want to talk about Alex and Nicholas, because let's talk about their relationship, but also like Restute and obviously played a big part of it. So some of the characters that were going to meet, so Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, it was born in 1868, his father was in line to be emperor. And when his grandfather was assassinated, he became heir to the throne. So he was pretty worldly. He traveled around Europe, meeting with other royal families and Queen Victoria. So it sounds like he loved the rich part of being heir to the throne.

the traveling and all of that, but he wasn't really thinking about the ruling part or like actual politics. He was more like, this is fun, having a good time. And 10 really thought through when he was going to actually be in charge. His wife, Alexandra, was born Princess Alex of Hesse by the Rhine in 1872. She came from Germany, but she was also Queen Victoria as a granddaughter. So a lot of this is like, they're not related, but like everyone's related. You know what I mean? It's like a small, a small pool. Have you seen The Kingman? Yeah, it's on Netflix. Ray Fines is in it. Oh, yes, I have. It's all about this part of world history and how like those three, the German guy, the Nicholas, and then the guy in the UK, the king, George, you talked about him already before,

but they were all, like, they were raised together. Like, they were like, yeah, there were cousins. like they were like very close to each other it's very it's an interesting uh dynamic they had yeah exactly so it's like the small pool of like royalty all over europe and russia and everywhere um so alexandra was called Alex and she seemed to be like a lovely child but she was very shy and very introverted and then um diphtheria came through you know the palace and she lost a sister and her mother and she became like really brooding and like a very like melancholy child she was very shy, very religious. So her being very religious plays a lot into this because she believes a lot of weird shit because she's very religious. And people saw her as like maybe a little bit haughty, but really she was just super shy. So they met at a wedding of her sister to someone in Russia and he, Nicholas was interested in her. She was 12. He was 16. And she was like, whatever, they didn't get married right away. And four years later, they ended up getting married. One of the reasons that she didn't want to was because she really didn't want to convert from

being Lutheran to being Russian Orthodox, but ultimately she does. So she does end up converting, but it stays very religious. So similar to Catherine the Great, she, you know, became Russian Orthodox kind of right away when she got there. And also like political reasons people wanted them to get married. And they did love each other. So all accounts, they loved each other, you know, they had like a good, you know, connection. They spoke in English, I think is, is, is, is, is funny. Like after, you know, living in Russia, they didn't really speak Russian in the court. They spoke in English to each other. And Alexandra goes to Russia. And right before their wedding, the current czar dies and Nicholas becomes the emperor of Russia. He was not ready. And he said,

when he found out his dad had passed, he said, what is going to happen to me in all of Russia? So just like, not a good sign. No. And he was not like a baby. He was 26. you know so you should be prepared to take this job like i'm sure like um what's his face charles king charles has been preparing to be king forever even though he didn't get that job because he was like 80 you know but at least you know he was thinking about it for a long time yeah so he should have been more ready but he wasn't another thing that is like super contradictory to that because like he should have been more ready to be czar he wasn't But he, like, firmly believes that God made him czar, like, 100%.

Like, he believes that, like, God put him there and everything that he says is, like, has to go because it's what God wanted. And we talk about that, I think, before and other things as well. So if you like, it kind of goes hand in hand with the, like any monarchy is that assumption that you're that much better than everybody else. Yeah, exactly. So that just, like, makes you a weird person, you know. Taylor is that a is that a gray nation builder's shirt or a black one you wash these shit out of it's gray okay that was great all my black ones are gray now that's why oh no it's it was always gray but I do wear I do rock this station but this is the only nation builder shirt I think I still have nice I like it because it's cold so so so our necklace is from

kaffin the great's line and if you'll remember from episode one katherine the great was great and her son Paul was not. He was the dope. And one thing that Paul did was re-changed the law so that women couldn't be emperor. And that directly ties into our story as well later. And so we'll talk about that. And even though it was 150 years before that,

it still plays a direct role. So I've got some background and some, think about kind of the time that we're in right now. So he become a czar in 1896. And I don't know if you've seen pictures of Nicholas, but he has an amazing mustache. I don't know if that matters, but it's like a wonderfully curled up mustache. He becomes a czar 1896, they can get married. In 1904, there's a revolution.

And it's more than just like, it's very complicated, but it's a revolution. There's a thing called Bloody Sunday where people are like revolting, people are starving. They want, you know, more, they need help, they need jobs, they need all these things. and the there's like some orders and a lot of people die and it's you know a pretty like turning point there's a revolution in 1905 and nicholas ends up giving up part of his power to a legislative body called the duma so he's already kind of has to have to cut you off yeah here look at i'm going to share my screen with you okay i'm excited uh how do i do the whole desktop. This is the silent

interactive part. Oh my God, it's so funny. Fars is showing me how how Zarr Nicholas looks just like Jack Dorsey. They're like identical, right? He really does. That is terrifying. For those of Jack Dorsey

is the, um, was the CEO and founder of a Twitter and Square. But he looks identical to the team. Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. Sorry to interrupt. to you. No, I think that that is some, that's important for everybody to know. Wow. There we go. There we have it. Both have global implications for their jobs and leaving their

jobs. Yeah, no kidding. Lots of similarities. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing. That was totally worth it. So yeah, now you know what he looks like. So he looks like Jack Dorsey with a gilded military outfit on um so there's also speaking of the military this is there's a rush of japanese war happening sometimes nicholas goes out with his troops but it's just like a long game plan he just like kind of doesn't really know what he's doing right now so we're also in a very heavy time with like occult things so first would you would you have you ever gone to a seance would you go to a seance yeah i would totally go to a seance i have not gone to a seance but i would i don't know if i would i think i'd be too scared like i would really want to but i think in the

I'd be like really, really scared. I mean, I see why you would be, but I'm so, it's an Austin thing of like getting into like spirituality in weird ways, I think. Okay. Yeah, I think that's where the appeal would be for me. How many crystals are you wearing right now? I'm wearing one tiger's eye necklace. Some lava rock beads and then another bead that I don't know what it's made of, but it's,

it's good looking. All right. well, those seem to be working well for you. Yes. But this is also a very heavy, like, time with it. It's like, it's the occult. Like, I don't know if you listened to the last podcast about Madame Blavatsky or, like, have, like, people who are like, oh, I can communicate with the dead.

Like, come over, we'll have a seance, things like that. And obviously a lot of it's like, well, most of it is probably all sham. But, you know, there's a lot of that happening. And the rich people fucking love it. Because, of course, they do. We love going to these things. So it's relevant to our story because, Rasputin is also in this. So one thing that, have you ever watched American Horror Story?

Yes, absolutely. Did you watch Roanoke? Yeah. So Roanoke is my favorite season. And remember the part where like in the first part of it when the wife is at home alone and it starts raining teeth and her husband comes home and he's like, you need to calm down? So at that time, my husband and I made a deal that if I say something to him, like, Juan, it was raining teeth while you were gone. He will believe me and we will move because that is something that like you just don't make up. You know, so we're like, okay, let's believe each other.

If I'm like the chairs in the kitchen rearrange themselves on their own, like believe me, don't gaslight me into thinking that I'm crazy. So that's our deal. But also I think an exception to that is if one of us comes home and says, hey, babe, I just met a wizard. He's going to solve all of our problems. We should step back and say, no, you did not. Yeah. Yeah, pretty simple rule. Yeah.

So, Resbyn is, I mean, imagine him being a wizard. He was born in Siberia in 1869. There's some great resources on him. Watch that movie with Alan Rickman. It's so good. But some of the fun things about him are, I always think of him as so, such as an ancient being, you know, but he's not.

There's pictures of him. You know, he died in 1900s. Not like he's an ancient mystic, but he feels kind of ancient, you know what I mean? It was just good branding. Yes, exactly. It was exactly good branding. And we'll talk about why.

So another just timeline thing, like he had kids and his daughter lived until 1977. So it's like there's, you know, she wrote a memoir about him that I didn't get to read, but I would love to read someday. He lives in Siberia, which is terrible. You know, it's just cold and awful. And he has a family. And he ends up, you know, being like, you know, kind of the town drunk, but I feel like everyone's drunk because you're cold. And he takes these, like, big pilgrimages walking across Russia in the name of God, like abandoning his family, doing all these weird things.

But it's also important to remember he's never directly in the church. He's just like around. He just like wears robes and like hangs out. He's never like actually a part of the church. And he ends up making friends with these sisters who are called the book. Black crows, we seem really cool. They're also, like, you know, mystical occult people, but they're just, like, rich people having fun in St. Petersburg.

And he, you know, starts to be introduced to, like, some more rich people. And that's the way he gets eventually introduced to the emperor. He is a weird guy. So it's like his personality is to be, like, eccentric. He comes in and he kisses people and he hugs people. And he does a lot of, like, touchy things. He'll talk to you. And then he'll, like, start, like, Lori.

his words and then like come back and then he'll like turn talk to someone else and then he'll do something else so it makes him kind of like mysterious and enchanting and he like does this like hilarious thing that he convinces people that in order to be forgiven they have to sin so he like that's how he gets that people to sleep with him you know things like that which is like sure I feel like from everything I've read about Rasputin he he created that persona like that mannerism that you're talking about which i've read a lot about it feels like that was manufactured and actually not who he was who he was at his core was the village drunk but he wanted greater than that and then he's like what do he's like okay i got to walk a certain way i got to

have the right swag right got to have the right voice the right like all that shit right exactly to like be appealing to these people to the people who like want something to happen like the reason that like the occult is so popular is like these rich people want something to happen. So they're like looking for it. So they see that in him exactly. Um, he has these piercing blue eyes and everybody's like, oh my God, his eyes. And I just also wanted to state for the record that your eyes are not a window to your soul. That's dumb. That's not true. And that he just had blue eyes are probably very watery. And people were like, ooh, they're sparkly. I don't sparkle. Just eyes. So no, Taylor, I don't agree with you. No, they're not. It's not,

This is magical about people's eyes. Just eyes. They're just like gross organs, wet organs that you can see from your head. You have a weird take on eyes. I don't know where this hatred comes from, but. I just think that they get too much, they get too much good publicity that they don't deserve. I mean, like, I'm grateful for them, but it's not a window to your soul. Okay.

We'll agree to disagree. Okay, great. Agree to disagree. So people are entranced by him. And I love the idea of like, you know, going to room and seeing this. weird, you know, guy, and everybody being like, this is the guy. But I feel like personally, I'd be pretty uncomfortable if I saw him. And I'd be like, what is this?

And I feel like nowadays, I could probably walk a place and find, like, a dude with a bunch of crystals who's like, hey, like, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, I'm a little skeptical of that. But it'd be fun just to, like, give yourself into being like, this is a magic mystical guy. You know what I mean? So you don't find my, this, this tiger ride necklace magical or whimsical at all? No. Wow.

I find you whimsical, but not because, it's not because of the necklace. There we go. Okay. But it's also like, I don't blame people for falling for this or like being a trans by it. It's like when you meet like Bill Clinton and people are like, you're the only person in the room when he talks to you, which is true because that's his job. They can't understand how to talk to people. So that's kind of what Resputeon is doing.

I also was thinking and I'm curious, like I don't feel like I hear this about women very much, that like idea that like you just entranced everybody. So I want to learn more about that. has stories of that. Please let me know. But he ends up, Rasputen ends up being introduced to Alexander Nicholas and they love him. They love that he's mysterious. They call him our friend. He hangs out with him all the time. He promises to like do magical things for them. There's an awesome scene in the Alan Rickman movie where he meets Alexander for the first time and he's like,

Mama, Papa, blah, blah, blah. He calls the Mama and Papa. He's like always on the floor. Real weird, but they love it. And back to the Zars and that line, that we talked about where Kevin the great son, Paul, said that women cannot be the emperor. They have four daughters, which we've learned before is gross. No one wants daughters.

So they have to have a son. So Alexandra and Nicholas finally have a son. His name is Alexi, and he is super sick. He's a hemophiliac. And this comes directly from Queen Victoria. She's a hemophiliac and brought that into the line. So then like Alexandra carries the gene

and then her son has it. So basically, if he gets like bruised he can die of internal bleeding he's like always in pain so he's a little sickly little child and somehow Rasputin does actually help Alexi in like some way that like is don't really understand they talk about it in last podcast it's like in a lot of the books like he did potentially make him feel better and maybe a lot of it's like psychosomatic like having this wizard over you makes you feel better um but once story that is kind of crazy he used to heal him like over telegram if he was like near death he would

send a telegram to the family and be like he will be fine la blah blah well one one thing i remember from that was he would tell the doctors to stay away from him because they would keep giving him aspirin at the time they didn't realize that aspirin was a blood thinner which is the worst thing you give to somebody who's a hemophiliac yeah totally totally which i think is that sounds true but like how wanted the rest of you didn't know that. Did he? Like what? Well, one of the other things I read was that he had nurses there who would intentionally get him sick or make him feel worse so that he could come in and be this wizard who fixes him. I would totally believe that too. Yeah. Yeah. And so for better or worse or however it happened, he did like seem to heal the boy enough so that

they were like really beholden to him and like really needed resputin around but they also didn't tell anybody that the boy was sick so they were spending all this time with respute and people most people around them were like what the hell is going on like is it a sex thing what does he have over you like what is this is he having an affair with the empress which like he was not he's you know assuming a lot of people but not her and he's just like weird drunk guy around all the time and all these things but i think people would have maybe understood if they were like we think he heals arson but they didn't tell anybody that they didn't tell anybody that Alexi was hemophiliac so that's um kind of making everything worse there was a reason for that i don't

remember what it was but it was something around how they couldn't let the next because i think that at that time nicholas thought that his grip was on the monarchy was tenuous anyways and he also thought that if he said that the next in line was a sickly child it would have made it even work because i think the duma was trying to convert to a constitutional monarchy at that time or whatever you'd call it you know that's right like like the uk yeah exactly yeah so that's exactly right so they if they would have known you know maybe people have been more sympathetic but he was definitely like this is i have a very like loose grip on this anyway they can't let people know this you know there's a lot more about resputin but he's starting

to put his friends into power it's just like again like a better emperor would have had better advisors than resputin and restputin's friends So a lot of it is like if you're in charge or something, like a country or a company or anything, like you need to hire the right people and they were not hiring the right people at this point. So a lot of people, long story short, a lot of people are mad at Resputin think he's a weirdo. So on December 29th, 1916, a group of people decide to assassinate Resputin. And it's a whole deal. So they end up bringing him over and giving him cyanide laced cake and wine. And Resputin just like does not die, probably because.

because he was alcoholic and his veins and stomach is lined with vodka. Like, that happened before too. They also thought part of it was, I'm going off the last podcast memory here, but Rasputin was stabbed in the stomach at one point in his life. Yes. And they had to cut out a bunch of his intestines to like make him whole again or healthy. And they also assumed that because of that, because the sign I didn't, wasn't able to travel through and digest and absorb through his intestines, completely.

completely like a normal person, that's probably what saved them. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. That totally makes sense because he definitely like ingested a lot of cyanide and did not die like they expected him to. And eventually they end up shooting him in the head and dumping him in a river after all, after all this. So Rasputin dies. And it's already a very tumultuous time in the palace. And so Alexandra and Nicholas are sort of like resigned to it. They're like, okay, like they're trying to figure out what to do, what to do next. So, Essentially, like, there were a lot of problems in Russia. We had all these revolutions, all these wars, a better emperor, a different emperor could

have, you know, navigated World War I better. He could have, you know, helped his people more, but he, you know, was not able to, Nicholas was not able to effectively address these problems. And the government was seen as corrupt and ineffective, you know, because of a lot of reasons, but that, you know, became the whole epitist for the whole revolution. And he is, in 1917, he is like, taken from the throne and the family is brought to Siberia to live in exile. So the girls, Sick Alexi, Alexander Nicholas are kind of taken prisoner and the Bolsheviks

become in charge and the emperor line of Russia is over. So now he's the last of the Russian emperors. Maybe he could have done a better job. He didn't really want to. He relied a lot on Alexandra who also didn't know how to rule. They were both kind of like living their life. They were very concerned about their son. They were concerned about religion.

They were concerned about mysticism. They're trying to live this life that wasn't compatible with the time because the time was like a really revolutionary time and things were going to change no matter what. So if they would have done them, like maybe they could have done the constitutional monarchy and there could have still been an emperor like they have in the UK with the queen and the king or whatever. But they didn't and they ended up in this place in Siberia. And it ends for Alexandra and Nicholas. really terrible way. They are in this place in Siberia in exile, and then they're brought to the

basement on July 16th, 1918, the whole family, along with some other, you know, of their friends are brought to the basement, and they are shot to death by a couple people just shooting into the crowd of people in this basement. So they're trapped in this basement. They're shot. It sounds awful. They actually do it in the Ellen Rickman movie. They do it in like a very like slow motion chaotic way but the parents um alexandra and nicholas die right away the girls which is this is also terrible um don't die right away because they had like jewels and gold sewn into their dress that they had like taken from the palace and that kind of acted as a bullet professed for them so they didn't die right away they were just like injured and they ended up like being

stabbed or shot at close range to die so all the romanovs are killed in the placement, they put them in the back of a, like, cart to take them away to bury them. And then, like, the guys driving the cart are also drunk. Everyone's tired. No one wants to do it. So they just kind of bury them in a field. And they ended up finding their, their bones, like, pretty recently in identifying, like, who they were. But that's how they ended. So they started off as, like, you know, heirs to a really great empire and coming from these really rich families. And they ended up being, you know, shot in. in a basement and buried in a field um so one thing that i remember because again i this is one of those rare topics that you bring up that i actually know a lot about i love it please tell me more it's so interesting to me they the way they struck me forever was this is just a um married parent couple that no part of the story when as i read it listened to it understood it was you're dealing with these uber powerful people who like understand the gravity of what their responsibilities should be they were lit all of this was because of alexie all of it like

rasputin's involvement the way that everybody felt around the two of them was all tied to alexie because again nobody knew what was going on with right except the parents so right so there was no trust in them and in their government and like yeah you're right they they seem like just like they seem like just people they don't seem like an emperor yeah yeah and i think like that's the for me the the doomed to fail part of all this is that i don't know what you do with you're them because it's just not in their character to be these people but i don't know if it's not then maybe you just don't maybe you abdicate i don't know yeah i think that you you know you surround yourself with smart people and people who are smarter and people who know what they're doing.

So it's not like he became emperor and there was no one to help. There are people who had been like AIDS to his father and his grandfather forever. So they could have like continued to help him. But he was just like a little bit like, well, I mean, everything I say is right because God made me in charge. Like Henry the Ace did. So I'm going to do these things that maybe aren't advised correctly. So like you should have people around you who are super, super smart and really, really good at their job. But instead, they, like, had Rasputin around because they were afraid their son was going to die.

And they, like, invited his friends around. And it became like a, I don't know, like a group of people who didn't weren't, weren't qualified for the job. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So, so. It's unfortunate. It's not a fun.

It's not a fun story. I think that Rasputon adds this element of, like, comedy to everything. Mm-hmm. But it's just generally like a sad, awful, especially the way they died in that basement. with their kids all next them the other unfortunate part of it is that it ushered in uh linen and then and then it ushered in beyond that stalling like all the downstream horrible effects were because of frankly nicholas's lack of leadership exactly because of this poor leadership and because they were not you know at all prepared and then you know all these

things happen and we get to you know where we are today so fun times very very fun I recommend anybody who is interested in this. Go listen to the last podcast on the left episodes. I think it's, it might be five parts or four. I can't remember. It's four. Yeah, but it's based on their focus was Rasputon. But again, he's the critical figure in this country at that time.

Yeah. They said something in that that I thought was really interesting, which was like, if you, because like I just said, if you didn't have Rasputon, then you wouldn't, have had Tsar Nicholas run over by the Bolsheviks, which means you don't have linen, which means you don't have Stalin, which means you don't have the allied powers of what they said was really interesting was RASP was weirdly one of the most consequential humans that has ever existed because all the downstream impacts of it, you probably don't even have the 2016 election because you don't have someone like Putin who is a KGB officer

and saw like. Right, you don't have like Russia on Facebook. Yeah. And I think, yeah, and he He was just like a peasant from Siberia who wanted to do something exciting. So he was like, let me go for a walk and see what happens, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Pick your friends wisely. Exactly. Well, thank you for that, Taylor.

That's awesome. I'm really glad. Yeah, I'm really glad you covered that one. It's such an interesting story. So I'm going to segue us into the true crime. Thank you.