Rasputin (22 page)

A photograph exists of the body on a sledge,
having
just been pulled from the Neva. His raised hands became the subject of much debate. Some believed, like Maria, that Rasputin had somehow retained the strength to free his arms. Others maintained he had
miraculously
come back to life, before breaking his bonds. The more fervent ‘Rasputinki’ believed he had raised his hand in a sort of benediction.

Maria’s emotional turmoil at the time was
exacerbated
by further questions from the police about the exact nature of her father’s relationship with the Tsarina. The police had been told that she had once found the pair in bed together; her silence had been bought with a bracelet. She convinced the police that the story was untrue with an unlikely burst of laughter.

Five days after her husband’s disappearance, Praskovia, their son Dmitri and the faithful Dounia reached Petrograd. Maria had sent a telegram to Pokrovskoye to say that her father was missing. When
Praskovia arrived at the station and saw her daughters’ black clothes, she knew at once that her husband was dead.

W
hen the ‘frightful crime’ was confirmed, the Tsarina was inconsolable. The children’s tutor, Pierre Gilliard, was horrified by the effect of his death upon her: ‘Her agonised features betrayed… how terribly she was suffering… They had killed the only person who could save her child.’ The immediate reaction to Rasputin’s death of the children, to whom he had once been so close, was not recorded in any detail, though Grand Duchess Olga was heard to say: ‘I know he did much harm, but why did they have to treat him so cruelly?’

The initial plan to bury Rasputin at Pokrovskoye was shelved after fears were raised that his corpse would be attacked en route. It was judged wisest to bury him on land which, though close to the Alexander Palace, was not the property of the Imperial family. He was given a ceremonial burial just before Christmas, on December 21, in a chapel still in the process of being built by Anna Vyrubova. The proceedings had been planned in great secrecy, with those attending strictly limited to the Imperial family and a handful of retainers. No members of Rasputin’s family were invited, an oversight neither
forgotten
nor altogether forgiven by Maria. Of Rasputin’s ‘little ladies’, only the voluptuous Laptinskaya attended.

His grave was marked with a wooden cross. Months earlier there had been a service marking the laying of the chapel’s foundations. ‘Our Friend and nice Bishop Isidor there,’ the Tsarina had reported gaily.

Anna Vyrubova arrived for the service in a carriage with inappropriately jingling bells. The Tsar, Tsarina and their four daughters drew up in a motor car; the Tsarevich, Alexis, was ill and could not attend. The
Tsarina
wept at the sight of the coffin. The Tsar’s diary
entry
demonstrated that, for all his whistling, he had not taken the murder lightly: ‘At 9.00 o’clock we went to… the field where we were present at a sad scene: the
coffin
with the body of the unforgettable Grigory, killed on the night of the 17th by monsters in the Yussoupov house.’

The Romanovs’ lively priest, Father Vassiliev,
conducted
the service. Bishop Isidor continued the singing, after his fellow miscreant, Bishop Pitirim, found himself overcome with emotion.

The Imperial family were in deep mourning that Christmas. There were no presents and the Tsarina wept for hours at a time. ‘I can do nothing but pray & pray & our Friend does so in yonder world for you,’ she wrote to the Tsar.

She may have found consolation from Protopopov’s claim that he was in regular communion with
Rasputin
. Protopopov became the Tsarina’s new ‘
homme
de confiance’.
Liberals who had once loathed Rasputin now hated Protopopov. At a New Year’s Day celebration, Protopopov offered his hand to Rodzyanko, who spat: ‘Nowhere and never.’

Rasputin’s body was finally discovered two days later, on the morning of December 19, after a sleeve of his fur coat had been spotted protruding from the ice on the Neva.

The punishment of Rasputin’s murderers proved problematic. The 12-year-old Tsarevich Alexis
protested
to his father: ‘Is it possible you will not punish them? Stolypin’s assassins were hanged.’ But this was a rather more awkward case, one which highlighted, once again, the rift which Rasputin had created among the Tsar’s relations. Sixteen Romanovs signed a petition opposing the Tsar’s decision to punish Grand Duke Dmitri. Two days after the murder, the Tsarina’s own sister, Ella, had sent Grand Duke Dmitri a congratulatory telegram: ‘May God give Felix strength after the patriotic act
performed
by him.’

Yussoupov was feted as a hero. Though he had his own reservations, the British diplomat Samuel Hoare reported jubilantly that ‘all classes speak and act as if [Rasputin’s death] is better than the greatest victory in the Russian field’.
The Times
printed photographs of Yussoupov and his wife, Princess Irina, captioned ‘Saviours of Russia’. The
Manchester Guardian
leader on the death of Rasputin was resolute: ‘Few men so well known have had so little good said about them, and if a fraction of what has been said against him be true, Russia will be a better place without him.’

The Prince would find people kneeling and
crossing
themselves outside his palace. There were cheers in factories, with workers passing resolutions to protect him. Photographs of the assassins decorated shops. Yussoupov was accosted by Rodzyanko, who said, ‘Moscow wants to proclaim you Emperor. What do you say?’

The Tsarina’s sister, Ella, claimed that nuns at a
certain convent had gone mad with glee, shrieking and blaspheming. Jubilant sisters ran along the corridors as though possessed, howling and lifting their skirts.

I
n the end, the Tsar, perhaps mindful of his wife, decided to exile both Yussoupov and the Grand Duke, proclaiming: ‘No one has the right to commit murder.’ Yussoupov was to be sent to one of his family’s far-flung estates, while the Grand Duke was dispatched to Persia.

In the first weeks of 1917, the Tsarina found solace at Rasputin’s graveside: ‘Went to our Friend’s grave… I feel such peace and calm when I visit his dear grave.’ She continued issuing instructions to the Tsar: ‘Wear his cross, even if it is uncomfortable, for my peace of mind.’

By February 1917, however, events in Petrograd had spun out of control. Opposition had been growing to Russia’s involvement in the war and rumours of impending bread shortages triggered a panic reaction among the populace. Textile workers went on strike; they were joined by tens of thousands more strikers who then took to the streets.

On February 28 the city was at a standstill and the Tsar was cabled at the front by one of his
desperate
ministers: ‘The Government, never having enjoyed Russia’s trust, is utterly discredited and completely powerless to deal with the grave situation. Further
delays and vacillations threaten untold misfortunes.’

The Tsar finally agreed, in anguish, to abdicate on March 2. Days later, rebel soldiers found and desecrated Rasputin’s grave, relieving themselves on the site and writing on the wall: ‘Here lies Grishka Rasputin, shame of the House of Romanov and the Orthodox Church.’ They dug up the coffin, hoping to find jewellery. Rasputin’s saintly aspirations had not protected him from decomposition: his corpse stank and his face was blackened.

He was reburied secretly by Provisional Government soldiers but then dug up again, stowed in a piano box and driven down the Old Petersburg Highway, destined for a third burial site. But, in a manner foreshadowing the fate of the corpses of the Imperial family, the vehicle carrying the piano box broke down and it was decided to burn the body at the roadside.

On March 11, at seven in the morning, the corpse of the Man of God was set alight. The fire burned for two hours and, at one point, the body appeared to rise up out of the flames. One reason for this may have been that the soldiers who burned him had no experience of cremating and failed to cut his tendons. When the tendons contracted in the heat, the body gave the appearance of sitting up. In another of his fortuitous prophecies, Rasputin once told a journalist: ‘If they do burn me, Russia is finished; they’ll bury us together.’

Maria claimed that, after her father’s death, she and her sister Varya visited the Palace regularly. Though they had not been invited to their own father’s funeral, the sisters were now warmly welcomed by the Tsarina,
who assured them: ‘The Tsar is your father now.’ But the visits began to peter out when three of the young Grand Duchesses caught measles and completely stopped
after
the Imperial Family’s house arrest. On Maria’s final visit, the Tsarina reached into a large jar in the hall and presented her with a handful of butterscotch balls.