Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 312: Rasputin Part III - The Rise of Rasputin

Episode Date: April 14, 2018

On the third part of our series, we cover Rasputin's further climb the top, the entrance of his arch-enemy Iliodor, and the beginning of World War I.   Nile's Blues Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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feature Anastasia, and I'll tell you, they were tasty and they paired with that Don Bluth classic perfectly. You can find Fat-Tire Belgian White near you by using the beer finder link at www.NewBelgium.com. That's www.NewBelgium.com. That's Belgium with an M. Enjoy the show. There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left.

That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? It's important when you start the podcast, you have to have a loose throat. Yeah, is that what you're doing? Because that's what I forgot to do. We actually had a restart because my throat was too tight. So in order to do Rasputin, Rasputin! What we got to have is big ol' slack and a condo throat.

Alright, welcome to the last podcast on the left, everyone. I am Ben Kissel. Looking at Marcus' parts. None of you have to relax your throat. I'm a loose snake. It's not an exercise. That's not an exercise. It's a funny snake.

Loose, loose, funny snake. It's not an exercise. It's literally not a voice exercise. I'm Ben Kissel. Thank you. I am Ben Kissel. Your voice is fine as always. Marcus Parks, your voice is great.

Thank you. And we have Python Throat over here. I'm like a sock with a brain. Yeah. I'm a sock rolling around. I'll eat you dope. Loose, funny snake. Very good.

We are on to Rasputin part three. We got a lot more to get to here. A lot more information. Much, much more information when it comes to Rasputin. Yeah, I hope you guys are ready for the fucking test after this. Every single time I read about Rasputin, Rasputin can't stop it. It's so deep in the mire of Russian history.

Did you have to like, like last night I was in bed with Natalie and I was trying to explain to her Iliador, which we'll get to, and the breakdown of how Iliador with like the sins of Rasputin's past came to haunt him leading up to the assassination. Well, actually, pretend I'm Natalie. I'm tall. I've reddish hair.

Oh, I'm tired. I don't want to go to sleep. Wake up. Wake up. What? Baby, this is an emergency. Baby, it's an emergency. Is Jackie fine?

Is Jackie fine? What's going on? Where's Wendy? So the problem with the assassination attempt of Rasputin is it actually starts in 1912 when Rasputin first met Iliador upon a task sent him. He was sent on, right? No, listen, this is the breakdown.

Baby, baby, wake up. No, you can't see me under the covers, but I'm slowly removing my engagement ring. Legally, you will be with me forever. You will be with me forever, very soon. Oh, that's sweet. It's fun, though. Yeah, Henry's grown up a lot over the years.

I mean, we know his last major relationship ended because he was talking about Hallow Moon, and now this one is going to end because he's talking about world history. Wow. See, growing. That is adulting. Adulting.

Hashtag adulting. So with Rasputin gaining more and more influence, the Orthodox Church figured they better do something about all this, not because Rasputin was immoral, but rather because he was hornin' in on their business. Well, the thing is, when he took the, he adopted the statets. Once they started calling them statets like a year ago,

he was not supposed to ever take that title because that's supposed to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Once he started like, what he would do was kind of playfully accept it and then make the people around him like sarcastically call him father, but eventually that became real. And as he's sitting there, people would go for him to advice,

and essentially the Russian Orthodox Church, not only would they give advice, but a lot of times they'd give it for money. Like, they would sell advice. They would sell counseling, which is kind of what Rasputin was doing himself. So he's been a real Ray Kroc. It's almost like they're a flimflam psychic community.

Oh, well, the church was extremely corrupt at this point. I mean, they were a part of the state, so of course they were corrupt. Now, the church started in Rasputin's hometown with this whole investigation, where they got a couple of priests to declare him a heretic. Uh-oh. But that petered out pretty fast.

Then they went even higher to another bishop to do an investigation, but the bishop just ended up being charmed by Rasputin. The bishop liked him. The bishop loved him. The bishop liked him. And he even made sure to comment on Rasputin's beautiful baso profundo voice.

I love bishops because they all look like hard-boiled eggs who are like, kind of rolled through a barber shop and have eyes. That's cute that you think that because I view them as just big, breathing, money-sucking butt-blugs. There's also that component to it. If you don't know what a baso profundo singing voice is... You got to.

I've got an example. This is how Rasputin sang. I can't get over it. It's beautiful. It's awesome. Beautiful. There's backup. I am going to listen to that nonstop on my iPhone

and I want someone to be like, so what you're listening to? And just plug that into there. I would follow that man off a cliff. I legitimately love that sound. The bishop shows up basically being like, you're a clasty and we're going to fucking, we're going to pin you on it.

We're going to dig up all this dirt. We know you're a horse thief. We know you like pulling your cock out all the time. And then he shows up and goes, and the bishop's like, I have my wife. She does the take my wife bit. I don't even think he stole the horses.

I think they just went with it. I mean, that voice, that's horse music. But also remember, this is a good tip. I've found baso profundos before because there's nothing quite as funny as being on a bunch of fucking edibles and watching bass quartets from Russia. That's incredible. I totally believe that.

It really brings you in there. Well, Rasputin, he got rid of the people in his hometown. He charmed the bishop, but his fight with the church was just beginning as they were about to unleash a dog from Rasputin's past to raise hell. Uh-oh. Enter Iliador.

Roar! Roar! Roar! Roar! Big dog! Big dog! Getting that bone dog will hunt. Well, since meeting Rasputin before, Iliador had risen through the ranks of the church as a pious anti-Semitic firebrand. Okay. And when Iliador arrived back in St. Petersburg,

he found that he didn't like what Rasputin had become. Okay. Because as we said, when Rasputin left Iliador the last time, he was still a somewhat reasonably pious holy man. But we have a situation where an anti-Semitic holy man doesn't like Rasputin. That makes me think I like Rasputin. Well, there's no problem.

But not a bad enemy to have. It's a total bigot. Well, that's one of the things about Rasputin. Rasputin was actually very like pro-Jewish. Right. He was actually like he very much was cool with all the Jewish people. And also like ever since his days

when he got really freaked out at the monastery because they were all gay, he evolved on that. He evolved. And a lot of his friends were also gay. But he just because someone isn't anti-Semitic and isn't homophobic does not make them a good person. Better than someone who's anti-Semitic.

That's true. That's true. But he's a slippery fish. Remember, part of it is that he's a slippery fish and he ends up whatever boat that he falls out of whatever fisherman's hands. Does that make sense? I don't want to think about Rasputin as a slippery fish.

He was a big old leery carp with a fucking long egg stem. Well, way back then when Iliador first knew Rasputin, Rasputin had a predilection towards the ladies but at the very least he was sober. Because remember Rasputin was on the wagon for a few years there. But in the intervening years, all that had changed. Rasputin had become a drunken loudmouth. Again.

Again. Yes, again. Round two. Yeah, round two. And he would on the regular claim that the Imperial family was under his thumb that Nicholas called him Christ incarnate and that Alexandra would kneel at his feet promising never to abandon him.

Now I got to ask, how scared were the horses? Because they knew the last time he was drinking, they just kept abducting them like he was an alien. No, he was gentle with them and he charmed them. He was a horse whisperer. So actually the drunker he got, the more charming he got but in actuality it was the opposite. I think that's true.

The drunker you get, it's bad in human world but in horse world you're a king. Oh yeah, you're the best guy around. And then things got personal. When Rasputin and Iliador reconnected, Rasputin spent most of the time talking about his sex life all while teasing Iliador for never getting laid. If I could just be a fly in that wall, I would hang myself.

You imagine Rasputin, stinky Rasputin talking to a chunky anti-semitic monk about his sex life. How disgusting that must be. Now given Iliador's shit for being a virgin was one thing but maligning the imperial family was something different all together. Iliador took that shit seriously. And so Iliador switched sides from friend to foe and joined the fight in removing Rasputin

as an influence on the imperial family. While there were many smaller plots that failed the grand scheme that Rasputin's enemies had involved a Finnish ballerina named Lisa Tensen. I was going to make a joke about how they created a paper mache vagina that was actually a trap and he walked into it but they actually did that. There are many stories.

It's like Yogi Bear with a pussy. Every story that they deal with and it's all of this stuff were like we left the door hanging open to the main priest's wife's chambers because they would like leave the door open because they knew that Rasputin seriously couldn't help but sneak in like a fucking Bugs Bunny cartoon. They need to get glue traps. Glue traps for this guy. So this ballerina invited Rasputin over to her house one night

where they proceeded to get fallen down drunk together. Then when Rasputin was good and ready Tensen brought out a few hired naked ladies removed Rasputin's clothes and took a few secret photographs. Well they're setting him up. Definitely like a fucking, it's like a porno movie for Rasputin. Every day in his life he's thinking that it'll unfold like one of those like the bang bus scenarios

where he'll just like be abducted and all of a sudden he's forced to have sex with ten women because also part of it is that he's getting rid of their sin remember and so sex with him and other women is a burden which is I think I actually do believe he thought was real and that he thought that God made his dick hard as much as it did because it was punishing him and he had to give it out and so he would roll into these scenarios and be like

oh I've got the fuck. All of these. You know I gotta, I'm gonna get a little blue here with a little humor. You know some people they say you got a cross to bear he had a cock to bear. There you go. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Late Show. It's after 9 p.m. put your grandmother to bed.

Wow. But isn't like a, I mean what are cameras like back then? Don't you have to wheel something in and you got like a big light bulb that goes off and you gotta like make, you gotta put it into a bra. I actually think so and I think Rasputin was like you gotta get me from the right that's where my balls look most spherical. Yeah I mean there was these huge cameras.

No, no, no, no. Secret cameras? You're thinking in like, you're thinking like this, the cameras you're thinking of were around like that's like 50 years before this. This is the early 20th century like they're doing battlefield photography at this point. I'm thinking the cameras that would be, that would take a lot of pictures of the dead kids.

You ever see those pictures? Horrible. Yeah that was long before. That was decades before that. Remember this is early 20th century. This is not that long ago. It's still, it's not go pros. It's a big camera like it's a visible camera.

Like it's coming out and they're taking a picture of him. He's just so fucking hammered and he thinks that this is such a party that he doesn't care. You remember we're going to hit this again and again. Rasputin doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. Like he does not care about his standings. He doesn't, he has no agenda.

He is just rolling to whatever the next thing is and trying to like play it as it lays. Well soon after that party, a delivery man knocked on Rasputin's door with those pictures in hand. Uh oh. And an ultimatum, leave town

or we give the pictures to the czar. You mean to tell me that you're going to give the pictures to the czar that make my dick look like it's massive and I'm surrounded by hot women? Yeah, I guess I didn't have it flipped and turned around like that for me, but yes, Mr. Rasputin. Well, I mean they knew that this is going to hurt Rasputin's reputation

because at this point the czar and the czarina, like they see Rasputin getting a little handsy with women, but for the most part all of these stories about Rasputin fucking all the time, like Alexandra, the czarina, she's saying they're all lies. These are all lies that people are telling us to get Rasputin to malign Rasputin for whatever reason and the czar is just kind of going along

with what his wife is believing. So, but this is proof. So this is good blackmail. This is great. This is big stuff. This is great blackmail. Number one, this story is not that long ago. This story is about a hundred years ago at this point.

So a part of it's like I'm always forgetting this is not medieval times. Yeah. They essentially lealode him. They hit him with the paparazzi move where they're like, now we got the proof. We're going to fucking embarrass you, but what they don't understand is that Rasputin's a fucking dog.

And he goes where dogs go, which is under the house. They go to heaven. Dogs go to heaven. Yeah, Rasputin, he got ahead of this whole thing. I mean these people totally underestimated him. Rasputin took the pictures to Nicholas himself and said, I'm sorry, I am a sinner. Please forgive me.

I had to do this. Well, it's just right as you could just see because they talk about Nicholas's face when he saw it. His head was in his hands as he's looking at these pictures. And you know, it's like sort of like the Roger Rabbit with the patty cake pictures, but instead it's just fucking Rasputin's huge horse cock being played with by seven nude ballerinas.

And it's just like, seriously Rasputin, you did this. Yes, it's called the wheel barrel. Oh, right. I don't want to hear too much more about this man's sex life. Oh, I'm sorry. You're going to hear a lot more about this man's sex life. You're locked in. You're talking about the man that his own daughter called.

I want to do this one. This is fucking disgusting. Rasputin's own daughter called him a demon of the flesh, an orato maniac, a satyr carava sure, and a chief of a mystical erotic sect. That's just, I never want my child to have any kind of insight into that. Like, yeah. Dad's a sexy guy.

I just wanted to be like, he liked to fish on Sundays. He loved his programs. He started to wake up in time for Meet the Press around the age of 60, which he really did start to enjoy. Well, these guys that concocted this whole plot, they figured like this was going to be, this was going to cut Rasputin's head right off his body. Rasputin was either just going to leave or the czar was going to say,

get the fuck out of here. Right. But instead of banishment or even a light punishment, Nicholas actually rewarded Rasputin with the free all expenses paid pilgrimage. Yeah. He got to price his right trip. That's what he got. He got to go to Sunny.

I guess San Antonio, Texas. Like one of those trips where they just sent him out like on a scouting expedition and he was just like, are you sure? Because this is, it hurts me so much to not travel first class though. I mean, that my thing is, so this is a punishment. I will take my own baggage to, oh, first class. Okay. That's much to my fucking life.

Yeah. Missless game shows. It was always a carnival cruise they won. Hey dude, prices right is still giving away all expenses paid trips to Boseman, Montana. You don't got to tell me. But when Rasputin got back from his vacation, he found a new Ober procurator of the Holy Synod waiting for him. Uh-oh.

I wish I knew what those words meant. Yes. It is in the seventh episode of a devil man cry baby. I believe is when I first heard of the Ober procurator of the Holy Synod. Now, it doesn't really matter exactly what the Ober procurator of the Holy Synod actually was for our purposes. Don't want to get too in the weeds on that one. All you need to know was that the Ober procurator of the Holy Synod was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the stake capacity.

It'd be pretty much if we had a secretary of religion. Of course, I knew that. Yeah, of course. You know all of that. Yeah, it's so easy. It's so easy. Anybody can do it. You just sit and you can piece together your own Russian government.

You just need 20 wristboards that you all turn into various branches of government and then you just shuffle people back and forth depending on who's fucking who. Not a problem. And what really mattered was that if Rasputin was going to survive at the level he was becoming accustomed to, he needed to have influence over the church. And if he was going to do that, he needed the Ober procurator of the Holy Synod on his side. Naturally. And that's the thing that I think is misunderstood about Rasputin.

I said this at the end of the last episode, but I think it bears repeating. Rasputin never seemed to actually want to do anything. No. In other words, he had no grand plans in store for Russia, no vision that he wanted to fulfill all Rasputin wanted was to be Rasputin. And in order for him to be the most Rasputin he could be, he had to stay at the highest levels of power. Because that's where he had to be, man.

Because that's where the choices cuts were. He's out there fucking Rasputin needed the best of the best. Because you know what? He walked. He walked from Siberia to gay paradise and back. And he knows what it's like to hard travel and he's not going back. And Rasputin has, he just has no, he doesn't give a shit about anybody. He's kind of like Jesse.

Remember the VJ? Jesse Camp? Jesse Camp. Although Rasputin wants power, Jesse Camp heroin. He wanted heroin. Jesse Camp is definitely a fan of heroin. Yes. Or Rasputin's biggest challenge was that there were dozens, if not hundreds,

if not thousands of people who wanted him as far away as they could get him from even communicating with the Imperial family. They all hated him. They were all like, what the fuck is this guy doing around here? Because he was in every single, he was showing up at all the meetings. He was showing up at all of these high-functionary groups, groups, bullshits, like everywhere he was going. No one wants him.

He was hanging on all the highest levels of social class, like all these salons. Like, what the fuck is he doing? Who's bringing this guy around? Well, the thing, it's important to remember, nobody knows about the hemophilia. Nobody knows about it. Right. And that's still his magic trick. That's his magic trick.

Nobody knows about that. Not even Alexis's tutor knows about his hemophilia. I mean, nobody knows about this shit at all. So everyone's minds are just blown, why the fuck is this guy around? Right. Well, one of the people that was trying to get Rasputin out from under the Imperial family's wing was a man named Hermogen. Of course it was.

I know Hermogen. You don't even have to tell me. Hermogen, he's from a long line of Hermogens. If he's angry, they call him a Hermogen. I understand. We don't even have to go into him. I can just explain that right there. He likes cheese.

Now remember, Hermogen, he's a big old boy, big thick old beard, and they said he had a high, high voice. They suspected it was because he castrated himself for his love of Christ. Yeah. Cheese, okay. He was the Bishop of Siberia. All right. And who should be at Hermogen's side but the most tenacious monk in Russia?

Eleodore. Man dog. Man dog's fucking hoops. So one night, Eleodore invited Rasputin to a party at Hermogen's house. Think about how many times this has already happened to Rasputin. How many times they've been like, come over to this house, we're going to have a little get together, and then everybody jumps out of the closet and say, gotcha, they do it again and again.

Right. So you think he'd learn. No, but that's the thing is that it's like that happens once out of every, I don't know, a hundred times every other time he goes to a party at someone's house, he has a fucking great time. Okay. He's just constantly partying and drinking and dancing and, and, and hugging and, ha, man.

That's fucking good. But when Rasputin arrived at this party, he was greeted not with a party, but Hermogen, a Duma member named Colonel Ivan Rodinoff, and a guy named Dmitry Koljava. And it's the first episode of intervention that ever aired. And Koljava is referred to in the untold story as quote, an epileptic half-wit. Okay. So tell me guys, is this going to be one of those things where you give me a ticket for being too sexy and one of you starts jumping on my crush.

Come on guys. Let's do this. We're the naked ladies. Come on. Let's, let's fucking, let's crack this open, huh? Oh, we need to talk, Rasputin. That's what it was. Like Hermogen, like he opened up by just hurling accusations at Rasputin, calling them every

kind of no good son of a bitch in the world. But when Rasputin tried firing back, the half-wit lost control, started screaming. He went full wit. And grabbed Rasputin hard by the cock. Oh my goodness, that probably brought Rasputin back to his horse days. This is two times already that we've only mentioned, and I'm talking about when you read the books, this happens multiple times where groups of people grab Rasputin. This man was just, he was in a, he's in a room, and all of a sudden this guy's like,

yeah, send him a bitch, jump forward, grab his dick as a weapon. Rasputin's like, I know how to deal with this, motion back and forth, now it's sex. You try to hurt me, now I'm making it fun. Wow. Okay. Rasputin wiggled his dick free. My goodness. But they were still able to grab him, and they dragged him to the chapel where they made

him swear that he'd never talk to the Imperial family ever again. But as soon as he left, that's exactly what he did. He ran off to Nicholas and tabled. His picture of Rodding which was like, whap whap whap. With his little like there, his third, his third like. No, there's no word as to what happened to the colonel or the half-wit. But for- I hope they washed their hands.

Yes. Yes, a lot of hands sanitized. Yes. But for organizing the whole thing, her margin was stripped of all his powers and titles and thrown into exile. Oh. And Eleodore, in response to all this, he threw a very public and prolonged fit. Okay.

He denounced the Orthodox Church as an abomination and a desolation. He called the Holy Sinod a house of pigs. He called Alex a Rasputinaya woman and Nicholas a quote, little man, a drunk, a weed puffer, and a fool. And at top it all off, he said that Alexis was fathered by Rasputin himself. And you can just hear everyone just go, oh, I'm like, yes, because he said all of us. It's also like, if you're just walking by, you just see this like fat monk screaming on the corner about the dong of Rasputin, you're just like, hurry along kids, nothing

to hear here. How big your cock is that you could make multiple people go completely insane? Because it's a part of it. How many times he's like, he keeps slipping out of every single trap I set for him. It's like wily coyote. I don't get it. Eleodore then renounced his faith in a statement written in his own blood saying Orthodoxy was nothing more than magic and superstition, he then proclaimed himself a pagan deist

and fucked off to the country. So Rasputin's dong is so large it broke a man's religion. It broke his religion. It broke his faith in God. That's how much it shattered him. That's how slippery that dog is. That's how funny that faces of Rasputin is that he could just, he's just tap dance and path and forth, back and forth, and there's so many people grabbing their hats and throwing

on the ground going, Rasputin is just so mad at him. I also, part of it, it's also the same track as how many people end up as like energy healers in LA because they have the same breakup with acting where they roll a denouncement of acting in their own blood and throwing it at a fucking street cop. And with that Rasputin had defeated the last of his most dangerous enemies in the Russian Orthodox Church at that time. And he began the process of replacing his enemies with friends of his own. Hey, that makes sense.

Uh oh. Yeah, it causes a bit of a mess. Perhaps the most infamous of those friends in the church at that time was a man named Varnava. Yes. Okay. Varnava was a short, slender, handsome monk with a high-pitched voice. So handsome and so slender, with such a high-pitched voice, in fact, that he regularly passed

himself off as a woman. Yeah, he was kind of like, he had a big old beard, but, I mean, he wore a nice dress. That's kind of fun. He shaved his beard off when need be, for example, on this occasion, on one Halloween, he dressed in an expensive gown and began the seduction of a local governor. But before Varnava could seal the deal, so to speak, Varnava was outed as a man, horrifying the governor, and delighting Varnava. It's like the end of Ace Ventura.

I got you. It is the end of Ace Ventura Pet Detective. But it's also the downfall of Mrs. Doubtfire and many other 90s comedies that ended with a man and a lady pissing in a urinal and someone going, my word, what, what, huh? And Varnava was among the first of Rasputin's, quote unquote, scoundrels to be appointed to higher office on his recommendation. Now, yes, we can say that a lot of them, though not all, were pretty fun, groovy people. Varnava was a groovy dude.

He was. And they remind me of the cast from Rocky Horror Picture Show, where it's a bunch of like weird figures that are like on the fringes of society, and Rasputin was one of them, so he wanted to bring them into the government. Would you want Riff Raff to be Comptroller? Like it's stuff like that, where it comes down to, yes, these are all fun choices, Rasputin, but in the end, we have a very complicated government that we're trying to run that's in the verge of a world war that we're going to find out about in like fucking a year.

We're going to be in the middle of a world war, and you're putting in these people. Don't even stress the economy. I got my buddy Meatloaf working on it. Yeah. It'll be fine. Yeah, these people are five, six years out from a revolution, you know, five years after a full revolution in which like the autocracy was already starting to be dismantled. They're about five to six years away from a huge revolution, and Rasputin is putting

people into power, or at least recommending that his friends be put into power. And without exception, these people are all terrible at their jobs. Without exception. Not a single one of them we're good at. Yeah, there's something's coming to mind, but there's another situation where that I don't know. Another thing where people are being put into power based solely on how they feel about a certain one person and all kind of like a loyalty to like a crime family.

It's like it's weird. It's weird. And it's like, and as one person is kicked out, everyone that's replacing them is of lower and lower and lower quality. I can't get it. Rasputin. I don't know what it is, Rasputin. Since all these people were rascals, the Russian police kept tabs on him.

They even gave him fun little code names. Cool. Rasputin even had a fun little code name. His code name at first, the first code name wasn't that fun. His first code name was just the Russian. That's cool. Cool. It's cool.

You're just the Russian. I don't know. Actually, if my code name was just the American, I'd be pretty fucking psyched. It's awesome. That's like Jason Bourne. The other guys, but then they kind of gave Rasputin like a much more descriptive name. They called him Dayone, which meant the dark one. That's cool, too.

Think about it, man, because they're so scared of him, too. Remember at this same time, it's like, we're obviously upon hindsight, we're making him goofy because I feel that it's a goofy story in the end. It's fucking Caddyshack being played out before World War I, but he, in real life, like they're viewing him as this dark fucking mage walking around that they're very, very scared of that's supposed to be in touch with Satanic powers. Yeah. The other people, the other Rascals, they actually got pretty whimsical names.

Their names were The Crow, The Jackdaw, The Dove, The Owl, The Bird, Winter, Summer, and The Monk. They did kind of go with the bird theme there, and then they just kind of switched it to more of a seasonal theme. Again, it's sounding like fucking anime, man. Yeah. It really does. Every once in a while, I just wanted to kick into the Evangelion theme and just fucking

aww, the big swords, the big, like, wide swords. So he's really got a, he's got a posse here. He's got a huge posse, yeah. And each one of these people would have a part to play, big and small. So with the church vanquished for the time being, Rasputin set his sights higher to his political enemies. Now, by this time, Rasputin had pissed off quite a few people in the government on both the pro and anti-Nicholas sides.

The anti-Nicholas contingency thought Rasputin was just further proof that the imperial system was outdated and broken. While those on the pro-Nicholas side knew that Rasputin was damaging the imperial reputation, which put it and them in danger. The funny thing was, they were both right. Yeah. Rasputin was bad for business for everyone except the rascals. But it would be years before anyone would or could do anything substantial about it.

Okay. But a part of it is that it's, but it's true, is that he made everybody mad and because of the nature of the autocracy, he didn't have to give, Nicholas didn't have to give any reason for why he was keeping Rasputin around. And because he never addressed it at all, he was constantly weakening his positions on both sides. And also because in the end, if you can make a really complicated scenario boiled down to one dude, that's how they attack you again and again and again.

Rasputin was like a bad tooth in his mouth where it's like they could just get him at it for Rasputin every single time. He was a big obvious target and it was an easy target. It was much easier than trying to really solve the problems of how do you balance a dictatorship with the parliament? Like how do you deal with all of these complicated matters or it will just shoot on Rasputin because he's easy. Our other sponsor today for last podcast on the left is Stamps.com.

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Well before they could really do anything substantial about Rasputin, all they really had to count on was political maneuvering. Now one of Nicholas's supporters was the Prime Minister, Peter Stolyapetin. And with this man, Rasputin had his first real challenge. The church was one thing, he could fake his way through that with what little experience he had. Well, let's not forget that beautiful voice. But the state was something different altogether.

That's because those in the government were even more baffled by Rasputin's presence than the church was because even the Prime Minister didn't know about the hemophilia. So when Nicholas was evasive about getting rid of Rasputin, he was famously quoted as saying, there's nothing I can do, it only made those around him more suspicious. Because when they said, when he said, there's nothing I can do, a lot of people took that as like, oh Rasputin's got something over on these people, Rasputin knows something about these people. I mean, he does.

Or they also took it as, oh well, Nicholas can't control his wife, that Alexandra has all the control over Nicholas. But when he said like there's nothing I can do, it's much more likely that he also believed in Rasputin as far as like the hemophilia wins. He keeps my son alive. There's nothing I can do. Well, he was forced to. He was kind of forced to.

There was like a thing where he didn't understand the connection and he just let it ride out because he's watching his son who is just always being like, when I die, will the pain go away, mama? Like he's this cute face little sweet cheruboi and he's doing everything he can to fucking save him. And then Rasputin is the only person to be able to, but at the same time, it's interesting because he's saying there's nothing I can do. But the whole point is you are trying to fight for the autocracy by saying the fucking czar

is the only one who's the truly great decider. So you're undermining yourself by saying there's nothing I can do. Actually, there's everything that you can do. You're the fucking czar. He wants to save his son, though. That's right. Now, while the prime minister's disdain for Rasputin wasn't Nicholas's only reason for replacing him, it was definitely a factor.

But the thing was, this prime minister wouldn't even survive long enough to be replaced. During a state visit to Kiev, Rasputin had a vision as the prime minister's carriage rode by. Rasputin screamed, quote, death is riding behind him. And all that night, Rasputin muttered in his sleep. Death is coming. Don't you believe me? And sure enough, the next day, whilst the prime minister was attending the opera, a student

approached him during the intermission and fired a shot into his chest. Five days later, the prime minister was dead. And as a result, the legend of Rasputin grew, particularly in the minds of the Romanovs. And when it came time to pick a new prime minister, Rasputin was now at Nicholas's side, weighing in on affairs of state at the highest level for the first, but unfortunately, not the last time. So Rasputin went to this guy and was like, I got some ideas for prime minister. We got the crow.

We got my boy, the owl. Winter could come in here, crush this job or summer. So you want the planeteers to run Russia? Well, the new prime minister, though, who is actually known by the title of the fattest man in Russia. That's cool. That's honestly, that is an achievement is very difficult. I missed that one.

Fat was power. Yeah. I mean, it's like capital F, capital M, capital R, fattest man in Russia. That's awesome. Well, he didn't like Rasputin either. But Nicholas didn't know that because liking Rasputin was not at this time part of the litmus test. Maybe Rasputin pulled that classic joke.

He's tall and lanky. The guy is the fattest man. Oh, when you stand together, we're the number 10. Yeah, Laurel and Hardy, they're like twins. Yeah. Well, the fattest man said that Rasputin reminded him of comics from his days in the central prison administration, saying, quote, People like that would grab you by the throat and strangle you while they made the sign

of the cross with a smile on their lips. You know, it's funny, man. I never even saw you before, but I just knew you were fat from your voice. Thank you. You have any idea how much bullshit talk to get? Do you speak? Yeah. Like a lot.

They sound like when you're really overweight, you kind of sound like if a pug could talk with all that extra skin in their throat. Poor guys. Well, after the prime minister came out against Rasputin, the president of the Duma joined in, then another Duma leader, and then another pretty much everyone was telling Nicholas to get Rasputin as far away from him as possible allies and enemies both. But Nicholas didn't listen because Nicholas seemed to only really listen to one person, his wife, Alexandra, and Alexandra was constantly telling him that the only reason why their

son was alive was because of their friend Rasputin. And because of how much faith Alexandra placed in him, Rasputin, to take one of his phrases, was getting a little too big for his breeches. He was being too big for his breeches. He was being, he started really flashing it around. Yeah. But you know, I gotta say, there's something about being universally loved, but also being universally hated that will solidify support as well.

Yeah. That's what he did. He leaned in. He had a modern sensibility of understanding that hate is popularity. Yeah, absolutely. And if everyone hates you, you must be doing something right, you know, in kind of a perverted political sense. Yeah.

Well, for example, as far as Rasputin getting too big for his breeches, on February 13, 1913, the Romanovs were celebrating the 300th anniversary of their rule over Russia. And it was a muted celebration to put it, to put it lightly. It was a bunch of people being forced to go, hey, like as they do all of these parades and shit. Because you remember, one of them just shot the prime minister. This is not a happy country currently. Let's turn, let's turn this funeral around pretty quick here.

We got the 300 celebration rolling through. Okay. Thank you. Get the casket out. We're going to have this parade. If I have to late it myself. Are you already dead? No, this all 300 celebration, the animated movie Anastasia portrays this event as the

moment when the evil Rasputin enters with his big green dildo of death and curses the Romanov family for rejecting him, bringing about the fall of the Russian Empire. And I just want to clarify with the audience here. We went out before the show and Marcus came up to me, he said, man, I watched Anastasia last night. It's awesome. Yeah. It's the animated movie and I've never seen you so I guess cocky and confident about something

that you watched. I was like, okay. Yeah, dude. It's legitimately good. Okay. So check out Anastasia. Did you watch it with Carolina? Were you like alone in your office watching in the other room while she was playing video

games? We watched it together. Nice. Oh, very nice. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a specimen. No, the villain Rasputin like he carries around a big green cock that holds all of his

power everywhere that he goes and then when he finally dies in the end by having his big green cock smashed, he dissolves into a puddle of cum and blows away. I am sure there's some YouTube videos that have pointed that out, circle it side of the devil. Well, in reality, the gigantic grand ball did not happen, Rasputin did not come in proclaiming a curse on all the Romanogs. He spent most of his time at the ceremony jockeying for a good seat near the front until the fattest man in Russia told him to leave.

This is the one thing about the breakdown of all this is a part of what makes these stories so complicated is that this the way this story is portrayed is that most of the fighting is about seating arrangements. The Duma showed up being like, why are we sitting in the back for this fucking thing? Like why are we back here? And they're all jockeying and fighting with it. But then Rasputin, according to legend, showed up in a full priest regalia. Like he just showed up like fucking Prince with a golden cross on and the full ornament

where he was not also he's not supposed to be wearing because he's not a Russian orthodox priest. So he rolls in, we're like, hello, hello, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, need you, gotcha. He goes in, he sits like and then he sits in the front row being like everybody's happened to see me. And everyone's like, get the fuck out of here as soon as he shows up. And then he's like, I have to stay, I have an invite from the czar. And then finally, as he always says, he goes, OK, and just leaves, which is what he always

does. There it is. What he always tries first. He tries staring at someone first, like he'll stare at him for like 30 seconds and stare really hard. And then he just leaves and then he just leave when the guy goes like, get the fuck out of here. That's when Rasputin is like, OK, OK, I have to be scared about that and Rasputin's presence.

He wasn't just causing trouble within the governmental system since the church was now firmly allied with Rasputin. The church lost face with the public because the public was even more confused about Rasputin than anyone. OK. Because they all their hearing is just hearsay and like Russia's got a full on tabloid press going on at this point. But the funny thing is, is the czar had actually made a product because the Russians did have

free speech at this point, but just like a regulated form of free speech where the czar had proclaimed that no one could mention Rasputin and the imperial family in the same story. But they'd still just refer to him as like the man who lives at such at 10, 10 Stout at Slain. Right. They'd refer to him as by his address. And he was so well known that people are like, oh, they're talking about Rasputin. I think they actually refer to him as tripod.

Yeah. Which is kind of a nickname for an individual. The one story. So I've been reading a lot of out of faith power in the twilight of the Roman office by Douglas Smith, like a good pictures in there, and one is a whole sequence of a sketch that people did out on the streets of St. Petersburg, which was two little people. One dresses the fattest man in Russia and one dressed as Rasputin. Wrestling.

That's awesome. Yeah. That's funny. Jimmy Hart was there, the mouth of the South, promoting the whole thing. But then who should return from the countryside once more to save the day? Who? Eleodore. No, you don't.

Get that dog out of here. Maybe. No, we don't know exactly how these got out. But in 1911, letters from Alexander to Rasputin were released to the public. There was a bit of a leak as we've stressed, which is what happens when you're surrounded by nothing but fucking lackeys and cronies. There's a lot of leaks in your administration. There are a lot of people trying to figure out a way to maybe undermine what's happening.

Here we go. And as we've stressed, Rasputin and Alexandra did not have a sexual relationship. We can be sure of that. But in the context of the rumors at the time and out of context of their personal relationship, these letters told a different story. This is what one read in part. Forgive me, my teacher. I know I have seen much and still do.

Forgive and be patient. I try to do better, but I don't succeed. I know that much of what I do and think is not good. I want to be a good Christian, a good person, but it is so hard. So often I have to fight bad harbots. But help me. Don't abandon me. I am weak and not good.

I love you and I believe in you. God grant us the joy of mating soon. I kiss you warmly. Bless and forgive me. I am your child. Sounds like Jaja Gabor. Yeah. Remember, Jaja was great.

I remember Jaja. Yeah, she was fun. Naturally, the Imperial family was humiliated. I would think so, yeah. They didn't banish Rasputin, but for his carelessness, they refused to receive him at the Capitol. So if Rasputin returned to his hometown to Salk as he often did. But this was a big rift. This was like actually a big rift.

This was huge. We finally were like, you know what? We are sick of this shit. It's bad for us. Like you really embarrassed Alexandra. She was mad because she felt really exposed. She didn't want anybody to know. Because the one thing that Alexandra sort of worked with was she had a lot of secret

connections to people in high society and it was how she disseminated her authority by the people that she surrounded herself with. And having that sort of cover blown and like seeing the real her was a thing that she couldn't stand. And so they sent him home. So how was it that angered them so much again? It was that he had been sloppy leaving his letters out because we don't know exactly who stole the letters, but it was probably Iliador back in him and Rasputin were still

friends. So the leak is why he got in so much trouble. He let it happen. The leak is why because they're like, how could you possibly be this careless? Sure. Like you are communicating with the czar and the czarina. Like you have to, you have to be more careful than this. And it's this on top of everything else where it's like, dude, you got to go.

You got to get out of here. But I would say they shouldn't have been that surprised that he was careless given the alcohol intake. But nonetheless, but in October of 1912, the telegram miracle we talked about in the last episode came along to recap. Alexis was badly injured during a hunting trip in Poland. The little prince was near death and Rasputin seemingly saved the little prince with nothing more than words on a piece of paper.

That's right. Remember, don't let the doctors bother him too much. Right. And so after this, he's there no matter what. From then on, he is a permanent fixture at the side of the Imperial family until the day he died because they're not risking it. Right. Ever again.

It's like a fucked up story because the kid was almost murdered by a bumpy carriage. He was in a bumpy carriage in Poland and he suffered from a hemorrhage because they go to Poland to relax, which is, I can feel it. Yeah, that's your people there, yeah. But they go and he suffered a pain in his leg and just started screaming and they didn't know what happened. And I guess he had fallen down. There was like a couple of little incidents that happened and he was dying.

He was bleeding out. They didn't know what to do with him. They tried to do a blood transfusion. Nothing stuck. Then the, what's it the, they reach out finally to Rasputin, finally they're just desperate to do it. And he said that for him to leave him alone and they have no clue how it works. They've, none of them have any clue why it worked that his, that the bleeding stopped.

Yeah. But to them, from that point on, it's, it's just obvious like if Rasputin's not here, the air, not only is my son, but the air to the throne is going to die. That's right. But unfortunately for them and their entire country and the entire world, they were all sitting on the precipice of the greatest conflict, conflict known to man at the time. World war one. Now here's where things get a little complicated.

Okay. Here's where it gets complicated. Here it is. Let's do this. If you really want to get into the ins and outs of world war one, please go listen to Dan Carlin's hardcore history series called blueprint for Armageddon after you finish this episode. I mean, just to give you a scope of how big and how complicated this thing actually is,

one series runs over 20 hours, spread over six parts and it is fucking fantastic. Check it out. I mean, this is Carlin at the absolute top of his game. This is an achievement. Okay. I started listening to it. Well, I listened to it like a while ago, I guess closer when it first came out and I would just start walking and all of a sudden I wouldn't know where I was because I was

just listening to hours of world war one and I'd be like, the crowds are here. Yeah, some of you just ended up in Poland. So to greatly, greatly oversimplify the start of world war one, a bunch of kids assassinated Archduke, Franz Ferdinand of Serbia, this relatively minor and honestly fairly common for the time event escalated tensions that had already been brewing in the area. And before you knew it, very, very quickly, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were at war with Britain, France, Italy and Russia. I mean, this is within a span of like two weeks.

Imagine today, everything's fine. Two weeks from now, you've got China and Russia in war with the United States and Canada and everybody in between. Well the nice thing now is we're always at war. Yeah. So I'm not even surprised anymore. We're always at war. And it's, you know, the same things that they say now we're being said back then as far

as, you know, if war could break out because back then they were saying like, listen, we've got a globalist economy here. There's no way everything's too intertwined. You know, the economy would collapse if, you know, if war were to break out. So the economy's not going to allow war to break out. But you know, this guy gets killed and two weeks later, people are dying by the thousands almost instantly. I mean, we can't imagine the scope of violence and blood that this war produced.

But for our purposes, we're only going to talk about the conflict between Germany and Russia. Like we're not going to get into the battle of Somme or anything like that. Like we're just talking about Germany and Russia here. We're sticking with Rasputin. We have to. Now Germany had the same problem that Russia had. They were cursed with the line of succession, dalt as their leader.

But what the Germans did have, that the Russians didn't, was one of the greatest militaries in history. And as far as Rasputin was concerned, he couldn't have been more against the war for three very good reasons. One, Rasputin was a peasant. He knew it wasn't going to be the politician in the duke or the dowager at the imperial palace who would see the true horrors of this war. Just like it is in every war, Rasputin knew that it would be the lower classes.

His people who would die on the fields in the pursuit of land and glory. Absolutely. Black Sabbath war pigs, man. I know. I was just going to think that. And he would love Sabbath if he was around with it. Man, he's fucking super metal, but a part of this, it fit with his religious philosophy as well.

This is the only time that he was really correct where he kept saying, like, no wars. Because also, in the end, he also knows that wars are really fucking complicated. And he's just trying to have a good time and he's sick of all this hassle all the time. All right, so we got Rasputin wanting to protect the peasants. And two, Rasputin knew the Russians couldn't win because the Germans had a vastly superior military both in terms of leadership and technology. The Russians, on the other hand, really only had one resource on their side, people. Russia had the largest army in the world.

And Russia has never minded throwing a few hundred thousand extra bodies into the mill to make up for their shortcomings. And that only made the people hate the Tsar more. It's like the army of darkness. And three, Rasputin had a somewhat more selfish reason for opposing the war. And it's possible Alexander knew this, too. Rasputin knew that this whole system he depended on for his lifestyle was on shaky ground. If Russia were to lose, which they were almost certainly destined to do, then revolution

was a given. And revolution meant, at the very least, exile, but most likely, an unceremonious and brutal death for both the imperial family and Rasputin. They all knew this, though, but that was a part of the reason why Nicholas wanted to go to war was because he knew that if I can win this, I'm solidified forever. But everyone knew you're not going to win this. We're talking big risk, big reward. I mean, this is like big risk, I mean, it is a risk that is so stupid.

But it's also, it's the problem with this autocracy, you know? It's these guys up the top going, ah, I got it. Well, as we've really driven home, Rasputin had no agenda, he just wanted to exist. But once he got a taste of power, once he found he actually liked being a wheeler and dealer kingmaker, his days were numbered. Well, part of what he liked about working for the government was that he didn't actually have to ever produce anything. He liked doing little bits, he liked giving favors, he liked being important to people,

he liked all of the push and pull of the political world, but he didn't want to do anything. Like most politicians, he was a perfect politician because he didn't want to get anything done and he just liked the zips-absop of it. It's probably better that they don't get anything done because when they do, it's an atrocious nightmare. But this is the most fun you can possibly have. Being a kingmaker is easier than being the king and you get the same power. Yep.

And here's another interesting thing to ponder. Russia would have gotten into World War I with or without Rasputin and the chaos and failures of World War I helped to push Nicholas out of power. The question is, would the Romanovs have been able to hold onto their power had they not allowed Rasputin into their lives? Would they have been able to hold onto their power if they would not have let Rasputin into their lives? Would Russia-

Very good question. Would Russia have emerged from World War I as a constitutional monarchy instead of the eventual Soviet Union, possibly morphing even further into something closer to what England has? What your question was to you. Yeah. Yeah, good question. Good question.

Yeah. Definitely isn't for us to say. We're not historians. No. No. Okay, well that's good. But the fact that we're even questioning the role of this country bumpkin flim flammer in the context of the spread of communism, the Cold War, and even the mess we find ourselves

in today with Russia is a testament to how one man can bumble his way into changing the course of world history for centuries to come. Unbelievable. Forrest Gump and Horny. Forrest Gump like he just got himself into the middle of it and part of what you do is have no scruples. Scruples, you've got to take him to scruples, you've got to toss him out the fucking window. So I mean, think about it this way.

I mean, Rasputin's not there. For Rasputin's not there, the Romanovs might hold on to power. Romanovs hold on to power, Russia becomes a constitutional monarchy. That happens. Lenin never comes into power. Lenin never comes into power. Communism doesn't ever get a foothold or at least doesn't get its first foothold. There's no Stalin.

Then after that, there's no Cold War. If communism doesn't get a foothold, then China is a completely different country. Then you take it even further than that. There's no Vietnam. There's no further Cold War. And there's no Russian interference in this election. It's these things just tumble from one to one. Merdewald Marcus.

Merdewald Marcus. Oh, wow. We have a special new one coming in from H-Bow. But Marcus, you also have to remember there's no anesthesia. There's no anesthesia. Your favorite movie of all time. Honestly, well, according to what the original communist socialist writings, this is an idea that revolution is a scientific inevitability.

This is part of what they're saying is that naturally we're going to rise to a revolution. So maybe they were going to make it happen either way. But the story would be a lot more boring if Rasputin wasn't in it. And it's almost like culture works that way. Weirdly, it seems like where it kind of, like plants growing towards the light, they grow towards what's the biggest mess. It's like, what's like the most interesting fucking knot of bullshit that we can get involved in because humans are involved in it.

And that's what I'm going to refer to the sun as now, the biggest mess. Yes. Yeah. I mean, here you're right. It is more likely than not that the Romanovs would have lost hold of power, no matter what. But it's an interesting question. Absolutely. It's a very interesting question.

It's like, this guy, like there's always that one little thing that breaks the straw that breaks the camel's back and it's possible that Rasputin was that. Okay. But the thing is Rasputin almost didn't even make it to the declaration of war, as just two weeks after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, just the mere influence of Eleodore would come close to killing Rasputin. Oh my goodness. I'm going to die.

And had this assassination attempt been successful, it's likely that Rasputin would have been no more than a funny little detail in the overall story of the Romanovs, just a wacky little scene stir because Rasputin's most consequential days were still to come. All right. We're not even into the part where Rasputin was actually doing real damage. This is him just setting the stage for him to do real damage. Okay. Yeah.

So Rasputin had to return home to Bokrascoia soon after the assassination of Ferdinand because nobody had really expected that relatively minor event to trigger a war at first, much less the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen, but as the days ticked by, tensions rose, and as tensions rose, Rasputin became more concerned. However, as this seemed to be the season of the assassin, Rasputin probably would have been better off watching his own back at home. That's what I have my dick for, I glue two googly eyes to it, I hold it between my butt cheeks, it watches my back, come on guys.

That's, you're drinking again. Yes. Yes. The reason why he should have been watching his back was because the woman with no nose was at that moment lurking around Rasputin's estate. Wait, what? The woman with, is this the Princess Bride? What the hell is happening?

The woman with no nose, is she Chris Farley from Dirty Work? What is happening? In the land of the skunks, the woman with half a nose came. One night, about a month before Germany declared war on Russia, Rasputin was walking out of his house to answer a telegram from Alexandra. Suddenly, a veiled woman approached from Rasputin's left. He assumed she was just a beggar, so he reached in his pocket for some coins. But as he reached in, the veiled woman pulled out a 15 inch dagger and stabbed Rasputin

in the stomach. Oh my God. My fucking butch, my fucking butch, guys. Wow. I've been stabbed. He started screaming, I've been stabbed. He grabbed a stick and he hit her in the side of the head and as she supposedly, supposedly he grabbed a stick, he hit her in the side of the head and then again in a completely

Russian move, for some reason, everybody works like a flash mob, groups of people showed up and grabbed her and lifted her up off of him as she was trying to stab him again. Oh my God. And when they took off her veil, police found that there was what they called an irregularly shaped hole where her nose should have been. Weird. Yeah. Look up a fucking picture of this woman.

She is gnarly. Cool. Yeah, dude. She's fucking metal, dude. She was ready to go. Huge hands, apparently. Yeah. Really?

And although this woman was obviously crazy, Rasputin's suspicions, as far as who had sent the assassin, went immediately to one man. Oh. Eleador. Of course. Eleador. Eleador. But in this, Rasputin was only half right.

The woman was inspired by Eleador, yes, spurred on by an article called Eleador and Grishka, which was about Eleador and Rasputin. But Eleador himself probably had nothing to do with it, although he certainly acted guilty. Yeah, he acted real guilty in the strangest way I've heard in a while. When Eleador heard about the incident, he shaved off his mustache and beard, painted himself up with makeup like a pretty lady, threw on a dress, and escaped into the night. Then, still in full drag, Eleador gave an interview to a newspaper in which he denied

any involvement with the crime whatsoever. He then posed for some pictures and fucked off to Norway. I just want John Goodman to show up from the Big Lebowski with his bowling bag and just throw it at his stomach and be like, anti-semite, and just watch him curl over. But this man literally, I was like, if he's not guilty, I mean, he's acting like a dog that you caught ripping up all the paper towels. He went full O.J. Simpson words.

But why did he dress up as a woman, just to go to the newspaper, to talk to the newspaper on record as Eleador, and then pose for pictures dressed as a woman? I've got to be me, I've got to be me, I don't know. Not surprisingly, there was a fair amount of myth-making in the attempted assassination of Rasputin. Sure. Some said that the noseless woman had lost her nose from a bout of syphilis she'd contracted from Rasputin, and this was her getting her revenge.

But in reality, the woman had lost her nose to nothing more remarkable than an allergic reaction to some medicine she'd taken as a teenager. What medicine did they give her? I don't know. It was like lead or like mercury. There was something where they just slather goat shit on your face. She said she had an injury as a nut. She had an injury.

Think about that, is that you hurt your nose with a cut, you put medicine on it, and instead of the nose healing, your nose goes away and makes you a skeleton person for the rest of your life. Well, let's see here. We could go to this really perfect medical professional, or this one who's going to work on Jack Nicholson from 1989's Joker, just to really kind of get the facial reconstruction back. I'd say the best that I could.

These are the instruments that I have. Another myth about this story is actually pro-Rasputin, but this one isn't true either. It's said that Rasputin had sympathy for the woman and kept the violent mob from stringing her up on the spot, but in reality, Rasputin held one hell of a grudge, often referring to the assassin as, quote, a slut who stuck a knife up my ass. Clever Rasputin. Yes. Very clever.

He was, he did not mince words. No, I don't think he was sober enough to. And Rasputin, he had a reason to hold a grudge. The noseless woman had stabbed Rasputin near the navel right through the guts with a 15 inch dagger. So doctors were forced to remove parts of his intestines, putting Rasputin in miserable pain for the rest of his days, which he dealt with by drinking. He refused anesthesia.

They were going through this, and I'm like, this is just, talk about the worst injury at the worst time and the worst place because he got ripped up, he got cut, he got sawed in the middle of Siberia. So the other problem too is that they couldn't get a good doctor to him. So they had whoever was available, like the town's doctor who showed up, who had to then do an incredibly delicate surgery of piecing your intestines back together and cutting your fucking, and sewing your belly together for all intents and purposes. He should have died and he was very close to death.

Yeah. And he spent 49 days in the hospital. Oh, wow. Okay. But back in St. Petersburg, people were overjoyed, some because Rasputin had been stabbed because a lot of people hated him, but mostly because St. Petersburg was getting swept up in war fever. Oh, it's so fun, the lead up to war, people just love it.

They love it so much. And that's what spurred Nicholas on because he was finally getting some love because he finally got a bunch of people on his side because everybody was hungry for war. But also think about this, not only, so a bunch of newspapers thought Rasputin died, so they put up his obituaries that they had pre-written like always and getting that fucking opportunity to see your obituaries before you, that's kind of, that's cool. A lot of the obituaries were actually very nice, like, you know, it's like, well, don't speak ill of the dead.

But as soon as the newspapers heard that Rasputin was still alive, they were like, nah, fuck that guy. Nevermind. So back at St. Petersburg, like Nicholas, he made the proclamation of war from a balcony at the Winter Palace, you know, and the entire crowd, I mean, it's just everybody in St. Petersburg is showing up and the entire crowd saying, God save the czar. But that exuberance would be short-lived. For within months, Russia would be drowning in the blood of her own people with almost

nothing to show for it, but Rasputin in constant pain and now in a constant state of drunkenness pushed on. In March of 1915, Rasputin was sent to Moscow by Alexandra on a sort of pilgrimage in an attempt to re-establish Rasputin as a man of God following the assassination attempt. But Rasputin ended up doing the exact opposite. Uh-oh. And now remember, during the context of this next little bit, Rasputin is supposed to be on a pilgrimage to reclaim his religious nature.

Yeah. Like this is supposed to be a, I am chaste, I'm a good boy, nothing's gonna happen bad on this trip. I've just, I've gone through near-death experience, I'm a changed man, like this is him building up PR, it's like maybe, and, you know, and they're also counting on, it's like, okay, the war is just starting, so, you know, the country's doing okay, kind of in a good mood, you know, we'll try to get people on Rasputin's side now because they know that Rasputin ain't going nowhere, so they have to try to get the PR up somehow.

All right, let's get to it. He fucks it up. Yes. No bad. No camp, huh? Yeah, all right. Yeah, so he arrived drunk at a Moscow restaurant named Yar. I mean, you kind of have to go drunk to Yar.

Yeah, of course, it's Yar, but anyway, it's Yar. And this place sounds like pretty goddamn awesome, like it had food and music and singers, it's like, it's like the place when you imagine a bunch of like old-timey Russians having an awesome time and singing and drinking vodka and wine and all that, this is what, that's what Yar was. Do you think he got on stage and was like, you have to hear my bassoon voice? Honestly, yeah, it's pretty close. It's pretty close.

So as the night went on, Rasputin got more and more drunk, and more and more, shall we say, inappropriate. That's fair. That's fair. He started off small by writing dirty little notes to the women singing, and when they ignored him, he started grabbing, and when they got rightfully pissed off, Rasputin became what the official report called, quote, sexually psychopathic, although that makes it sound much worse than it really was, because once again, Rasputin's mouth got the best of him.

Well, he's just grabbing and he's grabbing and joking and screaming and leaving wet kisses and unbuttoning shirts and doing all the stuff that he does. He's just been a horrible monster. Yeah, he's just being a total monster. Now, he talked often and loudly about good he was at fucking, even hinting that he was having an affair with the Empress Alexandra. He pointed at his belt and said, quote, see this belt, it's Her Majesty's work. I can make her do anything.

And then to drive it home, Rasputin started making obscene gestures while referring to Alexandra as the old girl. Uh-oh. Oh, I don't think you made obscene sounds. He eventually drew a crowd. And when someone asked whether he was really Rasputin, Rasputin pulled out his huge cock and waved it around his proof. Honestly, he's just Ric Flair.

Yes, he is Ric Flair in that moment. Now, this actually happened. This is not a mess. Something of it happened because according to the, the faith power or the twilight of the Roman office, there's obviously a lot of rumor. We don't know what happened. He was definitely at the YAR and he definitely got hammered because they said that a part of what they had to do is they had to put him in a private car a lot of the times and

they would drive him around the block to try to sober him up and pull him back out like he would. Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, he's really drunk. Let's make him dizzy. Yes, let's make him dizzy. It was very, very ridiculous. Well, whether this completely happened or just partially happened, it didn't really

matter. Once again, like perception is the only thing that matters when it comes to Rasputin and the Imperial family, because it did nothing to help his reputation and it actively hurt theirs. Despite this, Rasputin once again seemed to be rewarded for his bad behavior, which just compounded the damage on top of all that. The police director who reported Rasputin was fired, albeit for a different reason, and one of Rasputin's supporters was put in place.

But nobody knew that this guy hadn't been fired for reporting Rasputin. All they saw was that this guy had exposed Rasputin and had been fired for it, only to be replaced by a guy who openly supported Rasputin. And the war had gone from bad to worse. In just the first year of World War I, 1.5 million Russians had died. One year, 1.5 million. And because of this, Nicholas was about to make a decision that would change the course of history.

And that's where we'll pick back up for the conclusion of Rasputin. All right, there it is, Rasputin. The groundwork has been laid for the final conclusion. Yes, the real consequential acts of Rasputin. Cool. Now, it's very interesting when you get into the reading about this type of history and about bias, right, and about how, like, you have to remember, like, when anybody writes about anything, there's going to be some level of bias, unless it's just collecting dates.

Everyone always has a perspective. There's, like, a reason for it. And Rasputin's a really good example about how you could put whatever you want onto Rasputin. Like the pro-Russian state, like, later the nationalist Russian people, would go on to say all of this stuff was real about Rasputin and that they would trash him, and then there were other weird pro-people. It is very interesting trying to find the truth. Yep.

Well, remember who isn't writing a story or who is not speaking, because whenever you're reading, that's one person's perspective or one perspective, one narrative, and there's always another one. Okay, what do we have to do here? We have to thank everyone for Patreon. Thank you all so much. Henry and I have another interview coming up in the very near future, which will be very fun.

So thank you all for giving to that. Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah, if you want to hear any of the interview series that Ben and Henry have done, those are available to everyone who gives $5 or more to our Patreon. You can find that at patreon.com slash LastPodcast on the left. Yes. Yes, and follow us on all the bullshit on Twitter at Henry Loves You, at Marcus Parks at Ben Kissel.

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Are you going into, you're going into Althutra and all that shit? A little bit into that. Totally. Yeah, I found out that Ben did not pay attention during our Black Metal episode at all. No. Yeah, whatever. But of course not. But I like the music.

But it makes me mad, because I love runes, and it's made like, don't take my runes for me. Yeah. Okay, let's see here. Yeah, that's basically, Magustylations, Hail Yourself, right? Yeah. That's what we say at the end of these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How do we end the show usually? We're going to end the podcast on the left, everyone. No. All right. Hailsafe. Hailgi. Hail Yourselves. Hail.

Me. And then Magustylations. Just give it up. Just thank you so much for listening. Oh, my God. Bye.