Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 311: Rasputin Part II - Agrarian

Episode Date: April 7, 2018

On the second part of our three part series, we cover the filthy rise of Rasputin in Saint Petersburg, and just how he wormed his way into the Russian imperial family to the peril of all. 

There's no place to escape to this is the last time on the left That's when the cannibalism started I was so as researching raspidine I was a raspidine Yes, it's a vegetable soup made with just your hands and it's warm by your body But I was just looking at pictures because I like just kind of getting context of all the different people like looking at pictures of Rasputin's wife and all the other people that see just what type of like peasant body they have and there was one picture of Rasputin with sunglasses on and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth like in mid-stride walking down the street I was like this motherfucker slick

Like good like he was what he looked like a wet dog You can see me mean like I make these look good Puts on the sunglasses. He leave for the day with his dick slapping them in the knees. Absolutely. He's a real Joey Ramon That's my definition of cool All right, welcome to the last podcast of the left everyone I am Ben kissle with Marcus Park Hello, and we got Henry in Hollywood. That's all I do. Holly weird is what we're calling it It's just a little bit off-center. Yeah, I was in Hollywood Florida this past weekend And you know no one goes there to achieve their dreams

Everyone I spoke to was like so I'm twice divorced. I cut back cigarettes So I'm down to three packs a day now, but it was the best it was the best. I love those folks It's a lot of people living in housing developments. Yeah You know like Hollywood, Florida is where you go when you haven't achieved your dreams And you're longing to be closer to the clouds of heaven But you know that God pays special attention to the people of there just waiting to pluck them up Can you imagine if someone went there to achieve their acting dreams? Oh, we're like this is weird. Oh, no Well, you're just in luck little man. I'm glad you arrived from New York City

We've got a whole new production of the Pirates of Penzance happening at the East Coast players All right, we are on to part two of I will say it not so twangie Ras I can't We're doing Rasputin part two So when we last left Rasputin He had just turned 33 years old and was entering the city of Kazan Which is the Russian version of the Shaquille O'Neal version of movie Kazan by this point Rasputin had developed enough of a reputation as a wandering holy man that he'd been designated as a star

Which is a Russian word for a mystical prayerful person Wow, but it's very controversial because the statettes technically was supposed to be from the Russian Orthodox Church It was only supposed to be ordained by this state church So when people started calling Rasputin a statettes people are immediately like whoa whoa this guy makes this shit look good And he's like I make these look good And then he just taught his pants were loose and then he just tied his cock around his waist Not to cinch it up. Yeah, so a wealthy man's belt. That's what they call that So Rasputin showed up in the city with greasy hair black dirt stained fingernails and food in his beard. Oh

Oh All which gave him that coveted peasant outsider vibe that people didn't even know they were looking for they didn't even know They were fucking looking for he showed up and people were like whoa He makes this shit look good. He's like I make these look good again and again Like that it does seem to happen quite often It's he just was like with any luck. They'll revere me as a god I well, I mean he was just right place right time. He was that he was the right man for the time? They didn't even know they were looking for this type of guy, but they were wow because the Orthodox Church was

inextricably tied to the government because The Orthodox Church was the official religion of the state and it even had like a cabinet position Yeah, the holy sea nod. I believe it's called honestly. Is that what it's called? Or is it sign odd some of them? I I've studied for this episode like I like I was studying for a high school History exam like I was going through all these now. I just go like agrarian conflict 1905 Russian Revolution Agrarian I don't know a god damn thing. Yeah, unlike unlike in high school. Currently. You're loaded with edibles Well, since people were unhappy with the government at the time

This was exactly the right time for a flim flam outsider like Rasputin to show up Okay, and I think this is an important thing to remember here People are much more likely to fall prey for an outsider con man when the establishment is corrupt Even though he appears to be different. He's still mostly just interested in advancing himself Reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on it, but Okay, but he did show up, but it's this is not what we're joking around as always But he showed up like and it's weird Everybody the whole system was corrupt right because the priests used to be a part of the government and then the Russian government

Kicked them out of the government and then they brought them back in They've there's been a constant war between the rich class the people that run Russia and a church Since for like hundreds of years so at this point most people just viewed the people that were the very top of the Russian Orthodox Church as like people who just were keeping their positions and trying to keep all their special privileges and So just having this guy who's like one of the people with such a breath of fresh air Even though that the air that came off of him was fed it like a cow's mouth Absolutely, it's like when outlaw country said Elvis. You're a fraud

We're the ones doing the dracon. We're the ones doing the dragon We'll get into outlaw country because I've been listened to a lot of it Well Rasputin was definitely one of these outsider con men He was cunning manipulative and highly intelligent But he disguised himself as nothing more than a charming hick with a new perspective and people loved him for it Yes, he did the way the Jeff Fox worthy bit. It's literally just be like well I don't know that. I'm just a simple man and everyone just was like eat it up Yep, I have a feeling that Garth Brooks has very few friends in low places

I think it's like the low places are like the guy who just bought a small Yacht. I hire people in low places Another enduring myth about Rasputin and that's even one that Henry just put to the forefront was that his odor was quote-unquote Disagreeable as one of his enemies said they said that he was plagued by a goat smell Okay, but actually Rasputin would have been horrified to learn that this has become almost a fact of his character Really? Because Fuhrman author of the untold story Contends that Rasputin was actually a pretty vain guy. He spent a lot of time in bath houses But it could also be said that that probably had more to do with him getting laid under the guise of quote-unquote

Battling the devil then taking an actual bath Well, that is that is always difficult when you smell horrible. You don't think you smell horrible You gotta have a friend that tells you I guess Rasputin. I guess he didn't have a bud like that Yeah, maybe somebody could just take a plane and drop a bunch of pamphlets all over Europe explaining that Because they all think they're very fashionable, but Rasputin was very conscious of his style It's like what you see in LA and New York It's the it's the someone who look LA specifically when somebody looks like a homeless person in a fancy restaurant You know for a fact that those clothes like that's that's a $2,000 outfit

Yeah, that it was made for him to look homeless and he has styled himself to look like I don't care But actually they care very much because a part of it What is that Rasputin knew ahead of the time which is technically magical thinking is that my outside perspective when way people see me is Will help me get inside of your fucking head because I look like a character And now you will build me up as a character and then I become a bigger persona in your life Again and again and isn't that a part of secular humanism or Satanism when you flip the script on someone? They think you're oh, it's because a homeless idiot. I can't and then when he starts speaking there They're barbed in by him. They're hooked in absolutely so because Rasputin he was extremely aware of his peasant appearance and demeanor

So he used the perception to his advantage and said whatever he wanted Whenever he wanted and the upper crust loved him for it. He played it up He gave people little nicknames like that was this fucking great It's really funny we showed up into this fancy town because remember he was just walking for miles Yeah, he showed up right like he decided to go to Kazan the big city He's she's arrived in town and people like who's this guy because apparently a part of his long walk What it did for him toned his face and his legs and his body. He got a fucking tan He looked good. He had this air of a traveler and then he was fucking roasting people

He'd walk into these like parlor rooms and give them zingers and everyone's like Yeah, he called women names like hot stuff boss lady or sexy girl Your melons I am from small country small small little farm town and when I look at your mam I first say are you cantaloupe? Because it seems you are hiding I get the joke I wonder if he was surprised it worked He's Rodney danger field from caddy check I could see that or meet Wally sparks or back to school The only one the guys the cute ones that got the cute little nicknames men also got him as well

They had names like fancy pants big breeches long hair Or just simply fella Yeah, I will say if I was the one who was named fella nicknamed fella I would be a little bit sad cuz you're like long hair big breeches and you'd be like name me name me name me Listen, let me just stay one now thing okay from a man who's had many nicknames his whole life never beg for a nickname I mean this creation makes you look like a fucking dog. Oh, we want to slap you with my hat Got a big beard like big ears anything But most everyone just brushed it off as the humor of a peasant Wow

And ironically it was the corrupt church that really embraced Rasputin first to greatly simplify it They were looking for an earthy type that could connect with the common peasant to show him look We got one of yours. Please don't kill us. So he was really the bridge from the working class to the higher ups Mm-hmm. Okay, or at least that's what they wanted him to be that's what they thought he was But that's where Rasputin's greatest genius was for me and what made him an Interesting the best flim flam man in history one of the best was that when he showed up It was like he did that classic kind of negotiation tactic where he'd wait for people to speak and see what was going on Right, he first arrived in Kazan

He would just kind of go places and listen and kind of like talk with people and see what people's natural reactions were to him and he'd kind of play the field a little bit and kind of Pick and see how people reacted and then when they saw people be like, oh, you're like a country guy We've been waiting for a country guy for a long time. He's like, yes. I am country tattoo of pig on calf like I'm a butcher or somewhere in Atlanta or something Yeah, but you know, that's a great skill Marcus. You taught me that skill via Interviewing listen to the person and they basically give you the question. Oh, absolutely, man So almost as soon as Rasputin arrived

He started climbing the social ranks of the church and the first big get was a guy named gaveral Oh, Rasputin got on his side with the power of precognition, but this is just another flim flam stunt Rasputin told Gregg gaveral that he should watch out for a young monk named father Philip I mean gaveral didn't take Rasputin seriously, but sure enough a few days later father Philip tried stabbing gaveral to death Oh, no, Jesus Christ. So I just wanted like that's got to be weird if you just meet a guy at a party. He says hey, man Be careful of like a dude named Philip Why man, what's good? Why I don't know bro shit fucking happens when it's gonna happen to you Okay, so all right. He's super paranoid. Okay, I got it. Get out of here. You have long fuck

That's your nickname. I'll call you long fuck. Yes. I got a nickname So gaveral survived and dubbed Rasputin a true mystic But this prediction seems to be the first example of many of Rasputin just being extremely talented at paying attention to his surroundings and making educated guesses The guy could read a room like nobody else. So sort of like a spiritual Sherlock Holmes in some way Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, well, it sounds like it like a Joel Osteen It's the but and also having the religious background, right where you show up and you can be a you are Automatically placed on a certain level of respect and because you are a you're a holy man, right?

And so they are already expecting certain things out of you Which is why pedophiles take jobs of authority because they can do the same thing because immediately you get a level of Command over someone. Well, I want to give you credit. That's an amazing leap to pedophiles When you're hosting it's funny because it gets easier the larger your congregation So if you talking to 10 million folks, you can basically say anything and at least ten Who has the gout on their left foot? I mean, it's a you know, everyone lost some family member or something. Yeah, I mean, that's the that's how John Edwards

Did his whole spiritual mumbo jumbo for so long on crossing over not the not the former presidential candidate? Crossing over if you get a chance watch the deleted scenes of crossing over. It is hilarious I'm I'm getting a I'm getting a Marmaduke Sir, there's no one named Marmaduke. I'm just making up names here with the spirits tell me. No, but Henry I have a Marmaduke cartoon in my pocket. Oh my god It actually worked Well, the thing about the predictions is that we only hear about the correct predictions that Rasputin made

We never really hear about the dozens if not hundreds of times that he made predictions that never came true This guy was just throwing shit against the wall to see what would stick, right? However, Rasputin actually did have a talent for at least making people feel better It wasn't just guesswork his specialty in Kazan was to cure depression and malaise After a single half-hour conversation Come sit with me. I don't know if you've ever heard of a thing called the vine compilations Some of these are the funniest shit there's six seconds So you could blow through like a hundred them of a time and they bring smiles

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like vine, but it's a little long But Rasputin didn't just congregate with the higher-ups. He also made friends with his peers specifically a young monk named Sergei Trufanov Later to be dubbed Ilyodor But cool, he won't play a part in this story just yet. All right So Rasputin's final social quest in Kazan was the local bishop and pretty soon that bishop was impressed enough with Rasputin to send him to talk with church leaders in St. Petersburg

Home of the Imperial family and the Cosmopolitan Center of Russia. They sent him like right up the pipe Yeah, he really did like he showed up and it was just win after win after win. He's like a Donald Glover They're like you are a superstar Yeah, I mean how long are we talking here? What's the time from a year or two years dude? He went from his first pilgrimage and his conversion to St. Petersburg on the church's dime in five years Wow, and he was doing it in a first-class train car. Oh a lot has changed in five years But much has changed. He's not going he's not walking through the swamps and standing and letting all the insects bite him anymore This guy's riding in style, but also he took to it immediately before you remember

He put himself on that walk in order to gain spiritual oneness with nature and with God Like I was supposed to be a genuine expression of like I'm gonna go search for God and he finds me And but now as soon as he got in that train car. He's like, oh cup holders You could put anything in here you could put the cup I could put a bunch of peanuts if I want to look at this There's no swamp rats. I I promised everyone I would never fly first-class, but Delta had quite a deal going down to Florida And I didn't fly first-class and uh wow. Yeah, I get it It's different. They treat you like dare I say human. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Oh, they go like mr. Kissel

So thankful for you to come mr. Kissel. They got a little cocktail for you. It's very nice So when respite arrived in st. Petersburg He found a city pretty much tailor-made for him as furman wrote in the untold story st. Petersburg was a hedonistic artificial cynical city Extravagant privilege mingled with grinding despair. Okay. Oh, it's like New York. Yeah, New York City It's like New York City But when you go to st. Petersburg with the because it was supposed to be the the flip of Moscow

I forgot who it was that that worked on st. Peters. I think it was Peter I think it was Peter the great was that him Pedro the great I'm trying to learn history with in this show, but he They wouldn't you but st. Petersburg was built to be like the free swinging one because Moscow and Moskowitz were it was It was cold and the streets were needle and the streets was a field with gurgles And then you go to st. Petersburg and there are like glory holes everywhere. Oh my goodness I then maybe a jump. Well, I don't know man because like every newspaper in st. Petersburg was just filled with Advertisements for old-timey cures for venereal diseases. Oh, wow. That's how much people fucked in that town like a retirement home

It's like a retirement home except where it's stuff like it's bells to attach to your belt buckle So we would scare the dick demons So soon after Rasputin's arrival armed with a recommendation from the bishop of Kazan He took meeting with a group of st. Petersburg bishops in this meeting Rasputin made three predictions One bishop would soon lose his mother another would have an illegitimate child and the third would soon have a hernia Oh, and I am I have a fourth one coming up And what I will say is a a dark cloud will spread its disease

And pestilence all over st. Petersburg very very soon Well, I want to thank you Henry for allowing me to window into my funny word of Rasputin Thank you for the opportunity Well, it said that all three of Rasputin's predictions about the bishops came true in fairly quick succession Now it doesn't really matter if they all really did come true We really don't know but what matters is that people believed they came true and when it came to Rasputin Nothing was more important than what people believed for good and ill So, I mean the guy that you don't think the guy actually lost his mother

You think you just looked at his mother and be like you're dead to me Get out of here Rasputin said you were dead well It's more about like he because eventually Rasputin had people like he had his like his coterie of people that worshipped him So they would just spread his lore Everywhere in order to build themselves up as being attached to Rasputin So eventually these bishops didn't even matter because now he's like already Discarded this low-level Bishop of Gazan and he's moving his way all the way up to the top How many followers do you think he has around this point? Is he really well known yet?

No, no, no, he's still very very new in st. Petersburg And the guy that really brought him higher to the top though It was still a guy in the church, but he was higher than the bishops He was a guy named Archimandrite Archimandrite fail fawn nailed it Archimandrite what that was his title sale fun was his name or maybe it's so fun. I'm not really Happy you guys could feel my unbelievable pain when it comes to mispronouncing names It's a nightmare, right Russia was a multi-ethnic empire Fail fawn was the inspector of the theological academy and confessor of Zara Nicholas the second and his Zarina

Alexandra so this guy had he had the ears of the people at the tip top He had some clout. Oh very much so and it said that when fail fawn met Rasputin He was quote dazzled by a Rasputin's psychological perspicacity, so he was also like I'm sorry. It just blanked at its name the old the old black Politician that ran for president a bunch of times No, no, no, no, he's like The fast talker the guy who was very famous with the mustache

Herman Kane Are you thinking imagine there's no pizza? No Coalition Hit a lot of alliteration Yes, yes, you get a chance listen to Herman King singing imagine. There's no pizza at the Godfather's company I think it was a Christmas event or something. It's phenomenal. I met him and I and I told him that was my favorite thing ever He looked at me like I was making fun of him, but I love it Well fail fawn he used Rasputin as currency of his own

He used this new guy in town to impress all the other apathetic Aristocrats that he hung around with because at this time in Russia the Aristocracy were bored with the church and obsessed with the occult which makes sense as this time was in world history When the occult was extremely popular among the rich all over the world This wasn't just a Russia thing and while in America it pretty much peered out Thanks to the efforts of heroes like Harry Houdini in Europe shit got really out of hand to say the least Especially in places like Germany with things like the Fool's Society, which eventually took control of the Nazis Really got out of hand. I just saw Henry's room just lightened up as the light bulb above his head just went off

It was like I know about it Fool's Society they did not have agrarian Problems, I don't know what agrarian means Agriculture whatever Just say whatever with confidence and then it becomes real In Russia though the casual nature with which the rich treated the occult took hold from within the current Establishment and rotted it from the inside and that wroughts name was Rasputin. Oh, I prefer I prefer being called a stain Anything's better than fella

No a common misconception is that the occult equals the devil, but that isn't true It's not true. The occult means what is hidden? Yeah, exactly while it can involve Satan a lot of times The occult is just another word for the supernatural and that can definitely involve the Christian God, of course Well, remember this right if you really believe in God, right? Then you believe that God is a part of your life like what is more supernatural than that? What is more like the idea of being in touch with an entity that can magically? Manifest things in your life kid up can cause natural disasters created you created the universe So the it's intrinsically the occult because also what is forever hidden the actual

Mechanisms and psychology of God what that is what what that what that fucking entity thinks and and how it feels Yeah, yes I greatly offended my mother over the weekend But she was talking about religion and I told her she was a witch and then she said no, no, I'm a Christian I was like, no, but you sound like a witch So the first people to really bring Rasputin into the fold were two sisters the grand duchesses of Montenegro Melitza and Anastasia Their dark complexion combined with their interest in the occult gain them a few nicknames as well

Oh, they were known as the black pearls the crow sisters or most interestingly the black peril fuck yeah the The black pearl sounds like a karma suit a comma suit karma sutra comma But it sounds like it could be a disgusting sex act as well Technically it sounds like the reason why I truly do have to cut a hole for my butthole out of my butthair Um, which is terrible because it goes over over so much. You're like a dog. That's what I had to do to teddy bear the Pomeranian that's the first thing you've ever said that actually made me gag

I have two different scissors Myself and then one that I do for Wendy You are I'm pretty sure you're a cursed scientist You're turning into a pug. I'm disgusting, but think about this. This is like a goth Secret government. This is what Marilyn Manson always hoped would happen and eventually he would become a senator because goth chicks Would get him in there because that's what it is It's two goth chicks that have the ear of Alexandra

She would she would collect people in her coterie that would show up and and get the ear of her and listener Because we'll get into Alexandra's love of the occult later on but when they showed up like these were two like they were like Packaged for this shit. Yeah dress in all black. They were like, we know this secret hairy man That will teach you everything about the future standing there like swinging his huge arms and like muttering philosophically this is like This is pretty sweet. Yeah, he's collecting a lot of validation. It seems like he's collecting validation And what's brilliant about what he's doing is they all think that they're using him Like all these people think that they're using Rasputin to further their reputation when in fact when in fact Rasputin is using them

To gain more and more power while they all think that he's just some dumb head because the these sisters They kept telling us like Rasputin if you don't do exactly what we say that it will be the ruin of you You're gonna crash and burn. He was like, yes, yes, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where's the bathroom, huh? I'm gonna go use that and he climbs up out of the bathroom window into the czar's house being like I don't know how I got here. I'm just a simple country man, and they're all like refreshing Now it was said that the sisters had supernatural powers and hung out with a close circle of magicians mystics and sorcerers at their palace, which had been nicknamed the central point of evil powers In the only way you can come is you have to wear lace of gloves and you have to wear a hat with a crow on it

They're like, whoa That is just that's that's a nerd alert No, man, it's fucking cool. It's like it's just like if burlesque was a way to run the government Who says it's not These women they were both ridiculed but also feared by their peers But one person who not only didn't mind but also wholeheartedly believed in all things spiritual to a fault was who else? But Zarina Alexandra the Empress Cool, it's like the girls from the craft if they actually had power. Yeah, and then they're talking to the president

So finally let's get in to the Russian Imperial family the Roman offs. Yes. Now. This is always very complicated There's a lot to history when it comes to the Russian Imperial family Uh, it's very thick So we're gonna do our best to do a bit of a sum up Hundreds of years of history So I hope that we do it good. All right. Here's a bit of a sum up I'm simplified as much as I could I started a lot of this stuff But I'm gonna try to make it as simple as possible while still being truthful and factual. Okay

So at the very dawn of the 20th century, oh I imagine it on the farm Russia was still ruled by a czar and a Zarina an emperor and an Empress This was a straight European monarchy complete with all the genetic trappings and the occasional Incompetent rulers who've got the job for no other reason than they were just the next oldest male in line Two two things you want to look up first of all if you're really interested in this kind of shit Is that hardcore history did a really good episode in World War one that that really truly explains how the how morons just got inherited

To the top of the the food chain of all these governments and they fucked up everything during World War one and that also Uh, it's the in Russia. They made it specifically difficult for women to rule Yeah, so it was so they had to have a boy in the line, which is in the end. What really fucked Russia Yeah, it was Catherine the great that pissed off the Russian said the Russian men so bad that they changed all the rules So it could be only men who could rule from then on well, unfortunately for the people of Russia and frankly the world Alexandra carried the bad royal genes and while Nicholas would have probably survived his reign at just about any other time During the 300 years of Romanov rule. He was exactly the wrong ruler for this time in Russia

First of all, he was terribly unprepared for the position Okay, according to fearmen. He was emotionally immature and had no confidence What so ever when his father died prematurely in 1894 Nicholas had a hysterical breakdown Not because his father was dead, but because he knew he had no business being bizarre at all So basically they chose Martin. Oh my goodness. I just had it. What's the name Martin? Very good comedian You know very fine mole. No, not Martin mole. No Martin short. Basically. He's more short from the movie pure luck. Yes What is happening to all of us our brains are fucking destroyed

I've been working so hard on this this week Which is just phenomenal very weird reference very strange Show up, but you put also yet. Nicholas was Over mothered he was over schooled and they wouldn't ever tell him he was wrong though Like he had there was a girl came down from on top to be like never tell Nicholas that he's wrong And then he watched his father was his father's grandfather the czar got blowed up by a fucking bomb And they because you know, it's more of it back in the day So like you must say goodbye to your grandfather before he fucking dies

I mean roll him into the room the grandfather's legs are hanging off And they're like you're got this job now Grandfather looks like the like the night from what was it the meaning of life? The thing was is that he came in completely unprepared But he also never really wanted to learn after he actually got the job I mean, he wasn't a complete idiot But he did have the staunch belief that Russia was meant to be an autocratic state or day and by God and Anything else would come at the peril of the Russian people. Okay. Well, it did seem like an almost immature

Boylike idea is that when he showed up he was like very much been like I'm king now And I want to be the one who's the decider I tell people what to do and it's like, all right. Well fucking good luck. That's exactly what George W. Bush called How old was this guy Super young or was he mid 30s 30s? Yeah, he shouldn't have been this immature. No, he should not have been yeah I'm not sure exactly, but I don't know. Look at it early 30s But he was not he was not young now that he was I think he was around our age Okay, you know somewhere around there. So just imagine if one of us was your leader

Imagine if one of us was in charge of the largest country on earth. I think we could do actually very well Yes Well, what Nicholas does he ignored the good advice of people who knew what they were doing and instead listen to all the wrong people Namely his wife who had no business whatsoever Involving herself in affairs of state now as I said in almost any other time Nicholas may have been able to weather the storm and Rasputin by extension would have been able to weather it too, but Rasputin was a man of dualities and this was both the exact right time and the exact wrong time for him to rise to power For Nicholas though

It was only the wrong time because he bumbled his way from one crisis to another even before Rasputin came on the scene as Trotsky said Nicholas inherited both an empire and a revolution and he wasn't equipped to deal with Either he spectacularly fucked up the Sino-Japanese War of 1904 in an attempt to expand Russia even further And he followed that up by ordering troops to open fire on a group of peaceful demonstrators wait hold on so Arnold Schwarzenegger from Total Recalls of Russian No, he was just trying to get places quickly which is I is that the third Russian rushing joke so far was it just been one so far I think it's the first one. Actually. Yeah, we waited. Wow. We waited a long time to bring that one in. I'm proud of myself

Well when Nicholas ordered the troops to open fire on those demonstrators that ended up triggering a small revolution Is that you say small but it was like very important according to all the things I was reading that they're very big Of it was small. Let's say comparatively small to what happened in 1917. Okay. Yes back in 1905 All right, and by the end of it Russia had a constitutional monarchy essentially with civil liberties and a legislature called the Duma Oh, and Nicholas was no longer an autocrat, but he never really got that through his skull He never really accepted that he wasn't the only one in charge anymore Can I have a question though? Can I have a question? Isn't a Duma also the same as a Fupa, but in the back? I'll get yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. So that's all right. So back to the learning

Well all Nicholas wanted was for people to tell him everything he was doing was grand and great Not because of ego though He wanted that because he had no confidence What so ever in anything he was doing and the person who told him he was great the most was his wife Alexandra, well, you really loved each other though. Yeah, they really loved each and they absolutely and well Well getting what problems that created later on you would think you would be happy He don't he no longer has to bear the total burden of being a leader No, but that's the thing is that he believes that he was ordained by God to lead the Russian people

You know, he was raised by that. That's the problem with these people that think that God chooses them. Yes for their positions in political Office, it is also very funny. God tends to go the way of the polling data as well But they would swing back and forth different czars wanted more people to have because before it It was like it was that was what they said was ironic about the czar before him getting assassinated Is that he did so much to like open up to have the people be more involved in the government? Like that's what they were trying to do And so having the do now involved was supposed to it technically makes it a lot more complicated Because now you're listening to a whole sea of people that have been elected to give you advice

But still you are the decider as the czar so you could do whatever the fuck it is that you want Which is what's gonna be the end of Nicholas? It's gonna be him always being like but I have an idea and they're like And then like it's like oh, what's gonna happen? You know I mean agrarian and he's saying agrarian Well Alexandra she came with her own problems Alexandra or Alex as she was called was a princess of Hesse out of Germany She was also a niece of Queen Victoria. She's a German and a Russian well

She's actually German and raised in England. Oh, she actually wasn't that's the funny thing is that she wasn't Russian at all This was that like whole European royalty thing where they just kind of intermarry but only with each other And she was born in Germany raised in England, and she didn't she barely even knew Russian Her and Nicholas actually spoke English to each other because that was a slow walker kind of a slow walker I don't I don't have any more fun than I do with the two of you. Yeah, you know what? Yeah We were trapped in an island together You would take me two years to murder one of you, and that's a lot. That's a lot of time. Yeah Well the other thing about I just have a feeling that you guys would murder me first

Just start looking at my loose skin fantasizing about tense and then be like we could use them as a canoe But you know that when we finally hack into our reserve cases of Bud Lime I'm like no kiss will have more have more and you're like you guys bring real generous We just want to make sure you sleep real good kissal. Uh-huh start throwing pineapple slices on me The thing is about Alexandra or let's just call her Alex from now on because I like that Alex she was German and being German made a lot of Russians distrust her right off the back because Germans and Russians Don't really get along with each other And her personality didn't really help a whole lot either she was described as cold aloof and morbid

Oh, but she was a woman of conviction and she always did what she thought was right Unfortunately, though the road to hell is paved with good intentions, especially when it comes to Alex. Okay Well, however Nicholas and Alex as we said we're actually very much in love with each other Perhaps too much and they trusted each other and all this shit is great If you're just a couple of schlubs living in the suburbs figuring out how to pay your bills Right, so you're saying if this is a Kevin James show, this is a wonderful attractive couple that you root for Basically, but yeah in this he is literally the king of Queens Your patreon cut

But when you're a couple of slightly dim rich kids with no critical thinking skills in charge of the largest empire of the world During one of the most critical times in all of human history It's not gonna end well. Well, technically it just becomes a CW show It just moves from one of those networks to a cable show or a tutors So Nicholas and Alex's first four kids were girls Which was a problem as a lack of a male heir would end the Romanoff family line Alex she saw her inability to have a boy as a sign that she'd pissed off God somehow So she threw herself into religion and spirituality

From was she overdid it which alienated people even further It also made her susceptible to flim flam men The first of which being a Frenchman named Monster Philippe I like that. I'm French and that my name also with the French accent is barely any words My name is Mysterious Well, Philippe had been kicked out of med school years before but still practiced what he called occult medicine

We're gonna have to get there didn't real medicine because I can make it up And I'm always right a plus you get to Philip for your class in bullshit for the morning Well, he treated people with what he called quote psychic fluids and astral forces So this guy Philippe was introduced to the Empress by the crow sisters Who are always flitting around the imperial palace when it came to all things occult So in the service of the Empress Philippe claimed that he could select the sex of an embryo using hermetic medicine astronomy and Psykergy to give the Romanovs the male heir they required

Psykergy is also just fucking made up Yeah, like I want to look it up like I've like I've saw that too in the thing and I was like, what is Psykergy? The supposed ability to understand and enhance the structure operation and capabilities of the mind through thinking What does that mean? No idea, no clue But since Philippe was practicing medicine without a license Nicholas needed to give him some legitimacy So he just said fuck it. You seem pretty cool to me and gave the magician a doctor's diploma. Hey, all right That's that's why that's what's great about being the emperor. Yeah, you get a diploma

You get a diploma. Why is our nation full of idiots? But again, he just says shit and then everyone has to jump and say oh, okay But you don't become a doctor just because you have the piece of paper, but I guess you do then. Yeah No, a lot of people in Russian high society actually took this guy seriously They even took his claims that he had a variety of magic hats that could make him and whosoever He chose to share his collection invisible seriously and then Rasputin shows up and he's like oh You've got the magic cat. Oh make you invisible. I've got the jacket. I can give you that makes you smell like a goat That's just your jacket Rasputin

Everybody's laughing with my fucking ass But a hell of a lot more people were skeptical about magic hat man, but interestingly not of the magic hats Oh, they believed the magic. It's totally cool. The magic hat. Did he ever put them on and become invisible? I don't know. Oh, I don't think so, but they definitely did see him And they're like well if you squint and so much that you close your eyes You can't see him. Um, no, they were really skeptical because they thought that those magic hats came from the Jews Or and or the Freemasons Okay, so that was their problem. That was that they were they were Jewishly made

Magic hats possibly Jewishly made magic hats. Okay anti-Semitism was Rampant and Russia that I mean this is when like pogroms are just kicking off left and right Oh, yeah, I mean and the church is filled with like anti-Semitic like actual like societies Okay, so yes, it was very dangerous to be Jewish at this time But the interesting thing about Rasputin is like Rasputin actually had a ton of Jewish friends He was one of the few guys around like ah, come on. Let's hang out. He was very cool with the Jewish Cool guy, but that was Rasputin's Rasputin's whole thing was love everybody. That's what he kept saying So when you actually read when you read Douglas Smith's Rasputin faith power on the toilet of the Romanoff's you they were

There's a little bit more of what his actual beliefs are which is stuff like Love your neighbor love everybody and he loved the Jewish people and he was all about it I don't really understand at the time though. It was very fashionable to be anti-Semitic, which is not Not cool. No, no, of course. No, absolutely not. We love everyone here. Yes. Thank you, Kissel. Good work Very good work guys. We did it by being being normal Well eventually because of the supposed anti-Semitism actually, I don't even think he was Jewish But because of that he was forced out of court never to return But before he left he told Alex that she would one day have another friend like him

And this friend would be able to commune with God This planted the seed that would sprout into Rasputin You know that he thought for just a second that maybe he'd show up with a mustache and just Be a different guy Like maybe I could pull this off But you know, but and then like in Mary Poppins when he said goodbye He put a hat on and then just disappeared You're like, whoa

But after Philippe left Alex finally gave birth to a son. Hey, all right Alexis he was born on July 30th 1904 and everything seemed to be all good for the first few months But pretty soon the ugly head of European royalty hereditary disease reared up and Alex was diagnosed as a hemophiliac Uh-oh. Well, I want to say this. I think that her firstborn Daughter should have been the leader Olga. Wow Olga. Yes. Oh, you listen to an Olga. Oh, yeah, of course queen Olga Queen Olga. I will do whatever Mostly wash your queen. Oh, yeah, it's a lot of demands of washing feet and things like that No, but I'll ride on the back of a queen Olga just cupping her massive Russian boobies

Just using her big bold butt like a saddle like that's that we cool. I'll be fine with that Now the common misconception about hemophilia is that since the blood can't clot A single cut can be fatal and that's like kind of true But the real danger with hemophilia is internal hemorrhaging. You get a bruise. You might bleed to death But from the inside So Alex believed that this whole thing was her fault personally Despite the fact that her royal bloodline was chock full of hemophiliacs all came from queen Victoria She brought it into the european bloodline and before you knew it. There were a half dozen of them running around europe

Is it something that also comes from being incested Well, it was just that they all they just all intermarried together So queen Victoria brought it in from the outside. So I think one of her sons Or two of her daughters if I remember correctly two of her daughters Were carriers for disease the disease one of his son one of her sons was an actual hemophiliac. I believe his name was liapold Okay, uh and the two daughters

Were just carriers and one of them so much and it told them to put it down Thank you, Henry. Yeah agrarian Very good. So one of them took it over and introduced it into the spanish royal bloodline And alex alexandra took it over and introduced it into the russian royal bloodline. Okay, there it is But she thought this whole thing. I mean, it's all genetics. It's not her fault at all Right, but she thought that the whole thing had happened because she wasn't close enough to god She believed that prayer was the answer to everything including sickness But she also believed that she didn't have enough power on her own

She needed someone new someone to bring her closer to god and that man Was Rasputin. All right I'm here fuckers Yeah, hey, I hear your sons are real free a free bleeder, huh? No, that's fucked up, huh? Hey, I make his blood strong by play with his feet. Come on. I'm having fun. He's a real billy gram No, Rasputin had been waiting in the wings in st. Petersburg at the insistence of the crow sisters for about two years They knew that Rasputin wasn't getting anywhere near the empress while magic hat guy was still around But as soon as he was out of the picture

They started making moves. Okay. So on november 1st 1905 Rasputin along with the crow sisters met Nicholas and Alex for tea for about three hours at the imperial palace And I think it was actually scheduled in their calendar as creepy lunch I love a creepy lunch But actually the meeting was only supposed to be like a hi-ho low They were supposed to show up and it was supposed to be five minutes and it turned into three hours because Rasputin knew how To fucking lay it slick. Oh the two of them and those eyes are they're dad those dazzling eyes of his oh dazzling Yeah, and he laid it on thick immediately. He called them but you ska and matushka

Which was a peasant way of saying little father and little mother But they loved it because they didn't like the stuffy old aristocracy and they loved it even more when he used the informal version of You in russian We don't really have that in english like the the formal and informal you but in russia They have it like if you're talking like a superior or a better use the formal term of you But Rasputin used the informal term of you which kind of put them on the same level and they absolutely loved that But the thing was he didn't have to fake his folkiness. He all he had to do was be himself I guess maybe it's use

Yeah, use guys use guys. That's the informal. I don't know. Yeah, man We have to have some kind of news these terms is what you use But they are very uh, I mean it's uh still true to this day Every rich person I meet loves just being one of the regulars Except if it means going in the normal security line at the airport or like anything else that's regular like anything That's actually regular, but we love entertaining the idea that someone will show up and he's like look we're like one of them Yeah, the moment it becomes turns into an inconvenience Of course, they don't want to be a part of the hoi-polloy anymore

But anything that's like fun like hanging out with the dirty man who calls you you Then that's great. Yeah, it's like when Bruce Springsteen was on Broadway And I think the tickets were going for 1200 bucks so you can really connect with the working man He's a man of the people. I love the boss, but I'm just a little high priced. Oh, yeah But when Rasputin left this meeting Nicholas asked one of his top advisors what he thought of the Siberian peasant and the advisor Bluntly said they key thought Rasputin was insincere unbalanced and probably suffered from a quote Inflamed brain. You know what I would say if someone told me that well, tell me what you really think I'd like a second opinion and they're like, oh, you're ugly

But this is how everyone reacted to Rasputin every bar anybody else But them was like, who the fuck's this guy? Yeah, so many people saw Rasputin for who he was but you know Alex, but they weren't I mean these were desperate, right? They weren't just desperate. They were rich. They were sheltered like they didn't know Like this this guy this advisor like I think he was a soldier He knew like he'd met assholes like Rasputin in his life But the royal the imperial family they just didn't know they had no street sense whatsoever But for the and because of that for the first and certainly not the last time

Nicholas dismissed one of his trusted advisors opinions and slowly began to let Rasputin into his life and the life of his family And from then on Rasputin was not Rasputin to the imperial family and he never would be He was only referred to as either Gregory or more commonly Our friend Whenever you meet a couple that has like a guy that they call our friend, you know, it's it's very complicated Now Rasputin's rise to Alex's side did not happen overnight It took another two years for the right opportunity to present itself Rasputin spent that time in

Graciating himself getting the imperial family to trust him all the time Impressing upon him his skills as a healer So on june 19th 1907 When young alexis was in terrible pain from an internal hemorrhage You know a complication of his hemophilia Alex called on Rasputin for the first time pulling him up from the fucking bullpen And he's been in there waving his arms shuffling back and forth slapping his feet with his dick Just being like i've got the fucking rock. It's time for me to learn the fucking fade away, dude

Well, that's you conflated two different sports there You're welcome What you did they they sent him in to throw a touchdown I love sportsmanship Now the fact that alex brought Rasputin in is extremely telling because almost nobody knew about the hemophilia This was a closely guarded family secret because they knew that their power was fragile and appearing as anything But invincible to the public might result in the end of the imperial family

These people had to appear so much further above the hoi paloi So as the peasants to think that they could never rise up Also with the with the now the saddling of the duma Involving the duma now the saddling of the duma involved in their decision, mike Means that they have to appear very strong. Yeah, because they they are constantly saying no you need the czars You need our imperial choices as a part of the government and so they they're gonna come It's like fucking in sopranos. Tony soprano. Can't let him know he's in therapy man because fuck got attacked from all sides Yeah, you don't want to you don't want to see him vulnerable. Did you say hoi paloi? Hoi paloi. Yeah

He's saying it a lot. He said he said it five or six times. I thought it was a hawaiian dish Well, I mean the biggest thing about letting uh alex's hemophilia was that he was the male heir They knew that he was next in line So the duma could easily say it's like uh, so let's just get rid of this whole mark I think because it's obviously not working out. We can't have this. We can't have this feeble kid next in line What if something happens to nicolas? He's not gonna What if he he's gonna be sick in bed all the time and he might die at any moment before he even Fathers in air did they try to have another child at all or they couldn't yeah

Yeah, yeah, you yeah her her uterus is all fucking blown out give out And then you're you're cutting over to al to alexi and that sweet little boy looks like the kid from the secret garden And he's like that they do you think that one day Arkansas wings like a bird and fly to heaven And they're like, oh fuck He's gonna have to be emperor one day And he's just like draped in blankets because he's constantly shivering from how thin his blood is Not good

Well the fact that alex brought Rasputin in this time tells you not only how much she trusted Rasputin But how desperate she was to help her son So Rasputin came in Prayed over the boy's body and miraculously the next day the kid was all better And no one had ever made alexi's pain go away so quickly or had even had any effect on it whatsoever So alex believed that Rasputin was the man of god that felipe had foretold naturally finally sent to her in her greatest Hour of need So from then on Rasputin was always there to alleviate alexi's symptoms again and again

The amazing thing here though is this isn't a myth By dozens of corroborated accounts Rasputin could actually help the boy The thing is nobody actually knows how Rasputin did this Rasputin never cured the disease But when the boy was seriously injured sometimes near to the point of death the presence of Rasputin almost always made things better And sometimes he didn't even need to be there on one occasion Rasputin was on one of his many vacations back home to Siberia when the boy sustained an injury so bad He was given his last rites

So a telegram was sent to Rasputin pleading him for help and Rasputin sent a telegram back That said the boy is going to be just fine Just so long as the doctors don't bother him too much And miraculously the next day the boy recovered that happened. That is a matter of historical record It would be good to have Rasputin around when you're having your pasta your spaghetti and you get your marinara But it's a thin marinara And you say get over here. Thick it up So you're saying do you think maybe he makes that he made they could eat a bunch of like cornstarch or flour?

And that's what really that's a natural thickener Or you get something like an agate or like something that would you get some like a chemical thickener? Where you pour it into there Maybe a gelatin Yes So How did Rasputin do it? How did he do it? How did Rasputin succeed when virtually nobody in the medical profession the world over knew how to even alleviate the

Pain of hemophilia much less bring the boy back from the brink of death. How did he do it? How did he do it? Tell us how we did it. There are a few theories. Okay, but not many good ones. Okay Is it agrogarian is it have to do with the 1905 Russian revolution and then the seno japanese war russian japanese yes Now one theory says that a lady in waiting was in cahoots with Rasputin and would drug alexis to trigger the symptoms And then she would discontinue the treatment just before Rasputin arrived to make it look like Rasputin assumed that oh

The boy is better munchausen munchausen by proxy. Oh j simpson What when he didn't take his arthritis medication so his hands would expand Yes, so the glove doesn't fit you must acquit and he did acquit and now he's in Las Vegas What have we learned from every single jury? They love rhymes You can just find a rhyme You guaranteed you're innocent. Well, the thing is that there's no drug that exists that can exacerbate the symptoms of hemophilia Others say that Rasputin used hypnosis and one thing we do know about Rasputin was that he was a terribly talented hypnosis

Dangerously, so well, you can't be terribly talented. Yeah terribly terribly. That's a thing that people say terribly talented Well, it's something that that's another way No, you can multiple ways to say that someone is extremely talented You can it's like saying awfully talented and it terribly talented is technically a thing My mother would say about like the guy from jag Where'd she be like he's terribly talented That's the tone I hear it in I just would I just take a little issue with it Well, you well, do you think terribly just cancels out talented because why would I why would I say he was talented?

If I was already going to cancel it out the word terribly it just doesn't make any sense to me He was badly talented I also want to apologize. It's jeff hornesack not john hornesack. Okay, I had to get that. Oh good. Thank you for the correction Thank you One historian believes that Rasputin was able to calm alexis down by using hypnotism to contract his blood vessels Slowing the flow of blood and therefore allowing him to heal But nobody ever actually saw Rasputin hypnotize the boy Plus there was a matter of the telegram incident and that wasn't the only time that Rasputin did it from afar

On one occasion when Rasputin was too drunk to show up, which he sometimes was he was still drinking, huh? Oh, yeah Well, he was sober for a long time. Relax He was the entire line of the romanovs on his shoulders. I think he needed to take the edgy off every once in a while Well, he stayed sober for a long time, but then about like 1808. He fell off the wagon and stayed off the wagon 1908 1908 1908 excuse me. Yeah. Yeah 1908 fell off the wagon stayed off the wagon and was drunk for the remainder of his days Okay, but at this time. Yeah, this time like alex called him up. He was too drunk to come in Uh, so he just told alex over the phone boy is going to be fine within the hour. Don't worry about it

Telling this story about how my my super is never around in my apartment complex He's this Russian dude who's always fucked up and he's never around my neighbors one of them is nine months pregnant She was trapped in the elevator and we called him the elevator stopped working We're trying to get her out of there. We called him and he was just like I'd be there in the in two hours We're like, no, no, no, this is a now thing. This has got to be handled now He's like, okay, what you do is you get the ramming rod And then the shove into side of elevator doors How can you give it?

Gorsh gorsh gorsh gorsh you swing it back and forth like you're trying to work a stick into a dog's asshole I was like, oh good. So I'm glad I'm getting talked through this like a Drunk dude at the airport trying to tell me how to land the plane. Did you uh, did you save the woman? No, she died No, she lives since she the and she birthed the the the kid is beautiful kid beautiful and they're very happy Well, the whole point of this is is that uh, whatever espion did worked He just said the boy's gonna be fine within the hour and that's exactly what happened But he didn't he really didn't do anything though. He just said the boy's gonna be fine. Okay. He did something

And that's when coincidence was kind of floated, right? But even Rasputin wasn't that lucky because this happened a lot Like the boy like hemophilia isn't like a once a year type of thing Like this boy got her even though they were very careful and he had like two sailors following him around and At all times just to make sure he was fine. Oh, you're always safe when the sailors are protecting you The strongest of all the military folks. Thank you for your service if the sailors are out there listening. Yes Yes, I appreciate you. Well, the point was the kid was fine when Rasputin was around in some capacity And he was half bleeding to death from the inside when Rasputin wasn't and that's a fact. He was a real bagger vance

Now some people think that the explanation is so simple. It's almost stupid See back in those days Aspirin was considered a type of wonder drug a cure-all especially for pain and since this boy wasn't so much pain Almost all the time they kept pumping him full of aspirin But what they didn't know back then the aspirin is a blood thinner and it's just about the worst thing You can give to a hemophiliac It's theorized that Rasputin when he came around He just made sure alexis wasn't given any aspirin

But he never actually told anyone his secret so he could keep himself useful Hence the sentence in the telegram Make sure the doctors don't bother him too much and that is also a way to get your pasta sauce thinner Put a couple aspirin in there I'm not a cook. I don't know Oh, you cook it. Oh, yeah, what what happens and something's not spicy enough throw a couple of benadryl into the mix Put some benes in there I love a couple of benadryls and then you guess what if the pasta doesn't make you go to sleep the benadryl does

Oh, yeah, so that actually did rasputin know that or was that just a total coincidence? And it happened to work out for him. This is just a theory. Who knows who knows No one knows it just he had this hold over the sun Which is what kept him in play With the zars for so long was that he was some somehow he was the fucking security blanket But regardless if it was just luck or not, it did work. So it did work. What can you say? No, it wasn't luck. He was doing something like we don't know what it was he was doing But he was doing something and of course there's the explanation that rasputin actually was a magical healer

But there is One other thing to consider. Okay Horses he's a horse He is a horse. So this whole time we're telling a story about Rasputin the horse Well, I don't know that Alexi's a horse. Oh, Alexi's a horse. Yes. There's a horse There's a horse. So the boy's a horse So russia now has a horse leader Well, this is probably not going to work out well for them in the future

Well, technically it was the birth of the joke of then they walked in they when they saw a lexie in the first thing The doctor said it's why the long face Now as we talked about on the last episode Rasputin had always been uncommonly good with horses He was a horse whisperer, but in some cultures horse whisperer is interchangeable with what they call a bloodstiller The Baroness Sophie Bucks Hovedon said that she'd seen a guy called alexander the horse leech I don't want to know why he's called that This is why okay He when a horse got hurt when a horse got cut you called up alexander the horse leech the horse leech and the horse leech

And what did the horse leech do? He'd come out. He'd massage the wound He'd mumble some nonsense words and then the bleeding would stop. I don't like it Yeah, I feel like stop touching my fucking horse get out of your horse leech Yeah, you call the horse leech the horse leech doesn't just show up and start rubbing on bleeding horses I can smell them for miles Get out of here alexander the horse leech Became horse shack for welcome back Connor. It's a long line of horse people Well, sometimes this whole bloodstilling thing could even be done on people another person in

the Russian aristocracy So that they saw someone do it when one peasant accidentally struck the other one with an axe So it's possible though not probable that rasputen was able to parlay his horse sense Into calming the blood of the young star of you and your freaking horse sense This is the advice that give to anybody go around. Okay. If you're nervous around people you up there You're performing or you're doing something like let's say you're pulling out your slush or you're fucking you're dancing the cleba For the emperor's birthday Imagine everyone is a horse

And that's what I do. I look at the lexie. I see little horse and first thing I think oh I need to fill these buckets from the milk from its swallowing others and then I remember no in fact is boy I just I don't think you can milk a horse rasputen Well, you can I mean do I have to go through the whole meet the patterns fucking Robert the Nero bullshit How you can milk anything You know what maybe you are a sage because you knew about meet the fuckers

I knew that they would it would definitely fizzle at the third sequel because robert the nero is falling they get in Well really though how rasputen's healing powers worked didn't really matter All that mattered was that rasputen was now at the right hand of the empress of the largest country on the face of the planet Wow, but rasputen was not an unknown in st. Petersburg by that point He'd been in town for a few years and he had developed quite the reputation in the meantime And now that he was at the empress's side rasputen was easily the hottest goss in town Oh, this dude fucking just shows up No one knows because all of his hemophilia stuff's happening on the on the dl

No one knows what the what the real reason for him being there He's just in and out of the emperor's house, which is very difficult to do He's hanging out with all of the the the biggest social circles in the world At the time especially in russia and then it's like who the fuck is this guy and all of a sudden It's like he gets the attention of everyone because and it's not just like it's the people It's the it's the church and then it's the fucking cops They're all like all right. Well now we have to look into who this guy is Yeah, the people the church the government nobody could figure out why rasputen was held in such high regard by the romanovs

I mean had people known about his mysterious healing powers They might had just brushed rasputen off as like an imperial idiosyncrasy like a quirk of the empress like Oh, yeah, he just likes to she just likes to have the dirty guy around because she thinks that he can heal her son It's fine. She's a grieving mother give her that right and there would be other consequences for coming clean But people would still know the truth, right? But since people had no idea The horniest man in town suddenly at the side of the empress was about as fertile ground as you could get for rumors Well part of remember is that that's what secrecy does it breeds rumors and it breeds allow if that's the it's always the mistake

Of allowing the public and everyone else to fill the gaps in the story because then the the story gets wilder and wilder And if you're already at this very This crazy crux in russian history where the people are really unsettled and the relationship between the Aristocracy and the people and the church was at with this very high tension point. They didn't need help So basically it's like if uh, the white house was all of a sudden david decoveny Was just going in and out of the white house and you're like, what is happening? Why? Why is he hanging out? Why is he with fucking mike pence and they're fucking their golf and and then he's on air voice one and you see him I have his own phone line being like I love david decoveny

I trust him because of fox molder, but I also don't really know him. Yes, and why is malania smiling for the first time? He's like carrying her in a big basket. Get get me david decoveny. That's a horrible accent Now the root of all these sexy rumors was that Resputin was still a calisthe remember the calisthe the spinning sex people that we talked about on the last episode the calisthe Swinging sex people spinning sex people spinning sex people well, they were trying to make them a calisthe They're trying to say this because which is also weird because technically wasn't illegal to be a calisthe He was just frowned upon and no one no one liked them for some reason But at the same time he never was

And so they're they're big banking on trying to make them a calisthe kitten paying out Yeah, it also sounds like it would be very dizzying. Yeah with all the spinning there Well, that was it. We covered that you were very confused last time as well. I still am Don't get it. Don't get a lot of it Now this wasn't necessarily outrageous in russia at the time because as it's pointed out in twilight of the romanovs Russia was filled with bad chick crazy offshoots of christianity at the time. There were the begoni Oh, they were called their words. That was the runners. Oh They didn't have names use money or acknowledge family or the state cool

Fuck yeah, the big gunnies the big gunnies. Okay. There was also the more economy the milk drinkers Love milk I love milk too And I don't and I don't like it when people tell me I should stop drinking milk because I like it I love milk. You know, actually we're not supposed to drink milk. Yeah That is true. Well, guess what if we weren't supposed to drink milk You know what would happen? I wouldn't be able to wrap my lips around an udder and suck on it until the milk came out of it Get out get out of here, Henry

Every farmer that's ever met Henry Then there was the ducal bori. They were the spirit wrestlers. Oh, okay And there was the scotsy They castrated themselves And it wasn't just the many of the the dudes castrated themselves and the women Uh sliced off their breasts. No kidding. Yep. No kidding. That's that's when you don't want to be a part of yeah Well, the goss about Rasputin wasn't just whispered in palace halls and spoken over fancy dinners This shit was front page news and papers all over russia written in that beautiful russian literature style

Oh, yeah, this is an excerpt from a story about Rasputin in the new sunday evening newspaper and I love this Rasputin is a symbol. He is not a real person. He is the characteristic product of our strange times We must endure Exhaustion without end and when you feel around you are poisonous me as Rising up out of this lamp when they twilight this ends all around and then they have like strange figures come grueling out from their Grunt layers ghouls bats and the undead I never blamed of evil spirit. Damn it. You ruined it by going into scottish

It's this beautiful passage of like russian writing God damn it don't god damn it don't start doing this Don't start fucking doing it. He's got a red beard. What can he do? It's in his blood All right, so after that Rasputin hit the national scene when the Moscow Gazette ran a story called The Spiritual Touring Actor of Gregory Rasputin. That is what I want an article about me to be titled so bad Yep, you might get written up in the Moscow Gazette. I can see it Well that article portrayed Rasputin as a lecherous womanizer, a hypnotic social climber, and a pseudo prophet suffering from Spiritual delusion. Now that's pretty spot-on

But other newspapers took it even further One paper ran a 10 article series about Rasputin more than Jim Jones got Wow They claimed wacky shit like Rasputin keeping a harem of 12 beautiful young women as prisoners back in Pokruskoyah However, even though there were tons of rumors going around about Rasputin He didn't really help himself all that much because Rasputin had a real big fucking mouth when it came to just about anything Okay, that's a problem. So yeah, the peasant lost in the aristocracy act was only half an act

He still was a fucking big mouth ludicrous dude when he showed up Like joking around and doing all that stuff it came naturally And so as he grew in confidence and also had the power of the fucking czars behind him making him invincible He was just Roasting everybody. Yeah roast mode. Yeah. Yeah, he was that guy that like shows up and he's very charming at first But then after a while you're just like, oh god, you've got to go. You got to go like this fucking guy I can't I can't deal with this fucking guy anymore Now what Rasputin loved was shocking people specifically by describing the sex lives of horses

To distinguished ladies of the aristocracy There was one scene in this book in the uh, the untold story that you're currently reading by about Rasputin is that He told the whole story. He's just like You know in the field when the horse is super horny and juicy for fuck She spreads her hoofs around by marking it with mushrooms so that the phallus of the horse can squish Glush-glush so the bulls can slap up against her others and you my lady Or um saucy little mare like he would tell basically he would tell everybody about

Yes, sometimes. I mean, I'm also going to say He did a little grabsies. Yeah that did not do go over well. Well, he is a problematic character. He's a very yeah He's a very problematic character. Yeah, uh, and but that's the thing like he wasn't a handsome guy Uh, but they said that he simultaneously captivated and repelled women Now he was what you might call a minor cult leader He had followers that he called his little ladies All women and they took care of them. They gave him gifts They arranged his schedule and they even tried to copy the way he talked and moved

Yeah swinging her arms around wearing big fake socks in their dresses Yeah, but these women weren't peasants are common city rabble or young impressionable girls These were aristocrats His first aristocratic lady was olga Loctina a lot of olgas. Yeah, it's a olga was a pretty common name. It's like, uh Well, it was like ashley. Maybe jenny. Yeah, like a jenny Yeah, and olga was 40 years old when she first met Rasputin Um, she had been beset for years with chronic intestinal flu

Oh, but just as soon as Rasputin came to pray at her side. She said she was cured and from then on she was his Now there are definitely much more sensationalist takes on Rasputin's relationship with olga particularly in the timeline documentary about Rasputin narrated by brian cox which tends to present And most rumor as fact brian cox the linebacker for the chicago bears. He's no brian cox the super troopers and man Yeah, brian cox the actor, uh, but he every one of these docks are filled with shit Like that's kind of the problem every time you watch one. They're all they all say the same shit they all they all Perpetuate like him being a member of the clasty and being a fucking black monk and i think my uh, my favorite dock on Rasputin

It's called zoo. Have you ever seen that? It's a it's a powerful film. I think you might have liked it No one story that was told in this documentary about olga said that she eventually abandoned her husband and children for Rasputin believing him to be jesus and heard the virgin mary. Oh my gosh She was supposedly found in his apartment. Also. She's not a virgin. She has a kid. What do you mean? What? Oh, okay. All right. I'm not well. Did she was supposedly found in his apartment with a death grip on his cock screaming You are christ and i am your you And to this Rasputin yelled you are a skunk who demands sin What kind of flirting is this so he talks about the the intricacies of horse sex

And then that and then he calls her a skunk and she says he is making this hot dude. It's hot for her Oh, god, and she was taken away Uh, and this documentary like god, it's such fun. It's very fun, but it's just such full of bullshit It also features this creepy little guy who is way into Rasputin Particularly Rasputin's sex life. So let's hear let's hear this little guy described Yeah, oh, we gotta hear this little guy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It was not sex. It was Way to god He took everything which was terrible in their souls. They became absolutely clean

they became like children they like themselves In that moment because they were on the heaven Oh, he looks like a man Who only eats four leaf clovers? That is and he's way into that he is so into that my russian man with bright red hair is very very gross also does

But he seems to think it's very good. He really does and he he's just so he's so excited He's so so excited. He reminds me of I just watched a after Robert Hanson I watched a bunch of shit on incels and a deep dive into people who are purchasing Wives who would do mail order brides and he looks like half those guys Wow Well, the other thing about Rasputin on the serious side there were About half a dozen women that came forward with serious charges against Rasputin They're saying that Rasputin coerced them into sex on multiple occasions

But even with that Alex refused to believe any of it And as far as Rasputin's wife prescovia went she just dealt with it Yeah, what is what's the wife and family doing? They're just back in prescovia like they're not prescovia Uh, there's all the money. I think prescovia. I keep getting the name of his wife and the name of his hometown mixed up They're very simple. They're very simple. Yes. Yeah, but is he's is he sending them money and he's going back and forth Oh, he is going back and forth. Is he rich at this point then? Well, we're gonna find out So the breakdown is is that during this time point during this time period He's going back and forth to prescovia in order to show off all of the shit. He's gotten

The crow sisters that gave him a bunch of money enough for him to buy a massive house In his hometown, which then he's also taking all that money and buying He's doing like mc hammer when he moved back to Compton Where he comes in and he's just given all of his money to people in the town essentially just to make them jealous But his wife has like a very deep understanding. She's like fucking Hugh Jackman's wife She's just allowing him to do whatever it is that she wants because she it's their arrangement Yeah, one day Back in Rasputin's hometown

His wife was showing off their house to like a visiting couple and she found her husband having sex with a woman In their house while she was home But he didn't call it having sex outside of marriage. He called it exercising a demon But she showed no emotion or even even a bit of embarrassment in front of her guests All she said was quote Each man was bare his cross And this is his Oh my goodness. All right. So she's totally buying in she's potting completely. Yeah, okay

Yes, now there were and still are rumors that Rasputin took alex as a lover But this is just another one of the Rasputin myths The biggest if not only reason why alex kept Rasputin around for as long as she did was because she believed He was necessary to the survival of her son. Right She even went as far as to commission a study called russian saints who are holy fools About people who are regarded insane or eccentric and their times But were eventually accepted by the church think about how much work that was to validate their choices too Between her and nicolas they constantly had to like show everybody. No, it's cool. No, it's cool

So she had a bunch of scholars go and write a academic paper saying every saint was called a pervert Uh up until now which was fudging the facts A little bit got facts fudged Well one one of the big things that she neglected to mention in this is that uh all of those saints Uh they stopped All of their you know drinking and womanizing and all that stuff and they got Rasputin had done but apparently he had not No, no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no that's the fuel that keeps the machine going It was a real short trip on the wagon for Rasputin

Okay Yeah, and she even went like she even notated the copies that she gave to friends in one copy she underlined all the passages in the book that talked about the quote-unquote sexual disaluteness that some of the holy fools were known for in order to, as she put it, place Rasputin's habits in perspective. Okay. But even through everything, the Empress stuck by Rasputin. So he is basically untouchable at this point? I mean he's touchable at this point still. Okay. And the heat is about to get turned up real fucking high on Rasputin by both the church and the

state. He's gonna have a few little stumbles, but he's gonna make it through until World War One. Oh my goodness. Not good. Yeah. He was hopping and skipping and skipping and jumping and he was doing his best for a long time and we're gonna learn too is that mostly he's got the facts that Rasputin was just trying to have a good time trying to make as much money as possible and try to be like one of the aristocracy, but they didn't want a part of that. So they were gonna make sure that he was not for very long. Yeah. All right. That's where we'll pick up next time. Well, here I can't wait to see how hot the temperature gets. Oh

yeah. Because one of the big things to remember about Rasputin is that Rasputin never really had goals. He wasn't actually trying to do anything. Right. All Rasputin wanted was to be Rasputin. And in order to be the most Rasputin that Rasputin could be, he had to be in the highest level of society. And we're gonna see on the next episode exactly how he manages to stay there. I'll say it's like that, man. I mean, I'm so used to LA, crazy, the best weed in the world that when I go to like other places where it's like weed comes from like a baggy again, I'm changed. I'm changed. I have become high society, Henry Zabrowski

immediately. Yep. All right. Just like I got to fly first class on the way to Florida on the way back. Right by the toilets again. Right by the toilets. There we go. Which I actually like by the way in the back. I know. We've talked about this the way you would. How much you love being right next to the toilet. You get up to go right there. Anyway, all right. Thank you all so much for listening. What do we got to do? Thanks you so much for the Patreon subscribers. Without you, none of this is possible. Thank you so much. I know we haven't been too good at the shoutouts. We've been a lot of really big time crunches because of the book and various

things that we're having to get done here, but we are being really good about putting out extra bonus content. Yep. Henry and I have a fun interview coming up for you that I think you guys are going to like. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and all of those are available over on our Patreon page, patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. All you have to do is give five dollars or more and you get access to a ton of extra bonus content that we've done over the years. All right everyone, follow us all on social media. Yeah, follow us on Twitter and Henry loves you and Marcus Parks at Ben Kissel. Follow us on Instagram at Dr. Vin

Tasty and Marcus Parks at Ben Kissel the number one and follow us on all of the shit at LP on the left. Yeah, and on Instagram just tag us and then I go to that I go to see who tagged and then I like to put them on my feet too. Yeah, you're having fun with it. You're really having fun with it. There's so many great artists and all the dogs and stuff and it's incredible how talented our listeners are. And watch, listen to the other shows. We got other shows. Yeah, we got show, we got products, we got shows. All right, hail yourselves everyone. Hail Satan. Hail Geen. Hail me and remember, don't follow a stinky man even if he makes your sons blood thicker. All right,

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