Yes, an obscure Russian peasant can rise to such infamy that more than sixty years after his death, a trash disco band can write a song about him. What? You haven't heard Rasputin by Boney M? A must hear. In fact, the lyrics are like Cliff Notes for his life. Let's start:

here lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow
Most people looked at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow[1]chicks he was such a lovely dear
He could preach the bible like a preacher
Full of ecstasy and fire
But he also was the kind of teacher
Women would desire

This guy was an utter peasant, born in Siberia sometime in the 1870s. Yes, big, tall and overpowering. Overpowering smell, that is... he rarely bathed. He made his way to St. Petersburg (then the capital of Russia) during the reign of the last Czar, Nicholas II and proceeded to shack up with pretty much most of the female nobility to be had. He worked his way eventually into the close favor of the Empress Alexandra. For someone with so much pull, his habits were, er, interesting. We quote from The Man Who Murdered Rasputin, an excellent book by Christopher Dobson:

Rasputin enjoyed the [public bathhouses]... and it was there that he used to humble those women followers he accused of being too proud. He would make them strip naked and wash him... It was a punishment which both they and he seemed to enjoy...

Another event sheds some more light:

Lunch was usually a convivial affair. Rasputin still preferred to eat peasant-style with his fingers, and his more passionate devotees took pleasure in licking his fingers clean.... Predictably, he fell into a drunken stupor after lunch and recovered only just in time to receive Anna Vryubova, a minor noblewoman who was the Tsarina Alexandra's confidante and link with Rasputin.

OK. What's the problem here, you ask? Why not give props to the guy who can bag the Queen? Well, for one, kids, bagging the Queen is just immoral. Also, the people weren't fond of the notion that a religious heretic could call the shots in St. Petersburg. Recall that the Czar was off commanding his armies at this time (World War One) and so the man with the Czarina's ear was a powerful man indeed. Hey, at least it wasn't an astrologer (can you say Nancy Reagan?). Even so, you say, lecherous influences on the sovereign are nothing new. Where's the story?

The real scoop is his death. A group of noblemen, sick of his improper influence, eventually conspired to kill him. Like most assassination attempts, the whole thing was bungled right from the start. [Unless indicated, quotes are from The Man Who Murdered Rasputin.]

Our story starts with a young Prince Felix Yusupov, the richest, best-looking aristocrat in the Motherland, and his gang of followers. Knowing what made Rasputin tick (for the slow readers: rich women), Felix invited him over to meet his wife. As the Czar's niece, Princess Irina would be "the ultimate conquest" for this Siberian Don Juan. Prince Felix noted that the charlatan actually bathed that day: highly unusual. The plan was to lure Rasputin into a cellar, especially remodeled as a dining room just for the occasion, and there to poison him. With the room arranged by the afternoon, Felix spent much of the evening studying for the exams he intended to sit the next day. He then prayed for two hours. (For good luck? Come on... what can you pray for when you're about to kill a guy?) Felix finally ground enough potassium cyanide powder into sweet cakes and glasses of tea and wine to kill a company of men. As a side note, Felix's friends were upstairs listening to Yankee Doodle Dandy, the only record they owned, over and over and over. Really.

Well, so Rasputin shows up around eleven and (surprise) digs into the wine. Nothing happens, to Felix's dismay, but fortunately Rasputin finally

absent-mindedly, reached for a cake. He ate it, and then another, consuming enough poison in a couple of minutes to kill half a dozen men. Felix watched him in fascinated horror, waiting for him to drop dead. But nothing happened. Rasputin carried on chatting, waiting for Irina's guests to leave.

So, after another couple of glasses of wine, Rasputin finally puts his hands to his throat and seems uncomfortable. With Yankee Doodle Dandy still blaring away upstairs, co-conspirators going nutty with anticipation, Rasputin declares that he is just thirsty and downs another glass of poisoned wine. Much invigorated, he gets up and walks around the room! Upon finding a guitar in the corner, he commands the Prince to play them some songs and with six doses of cyanide and who knows how much alcohol swilling around in his belly, proceeds to sing rowdy songs till well past two in the morning, at which point he suggests they go see the gypsies in town, "with God on the mind, but with mankind in the flesh." Hey, if you're gonna party, do it right, eh?[2]

Prince Felix is aghast. Either from the music or the anticipation, his buddies upstairs are confused. One faints and the other nearly rushes down the stairs to just strangle this peasant and get the damn thing over with. Felix excuses himself and goes upstairs to conspire. Eventually it is decided that if all this cyanide won't kill him, they'll just have to shoot him, even if it is harder to concoct a cover-up.

So Felix comes downstairs, commands Rasputin to bow before a crucifix on the wall, and as he complies, shoots him in the back. Hold on, it's a doozy from here on out...

Rasputin fell to the ground with a roar, his blood seeping into the whiteness of the polar bear rug. The accomplices burst into the room, but one of them brushed against the light switch and the scene was lit only by the eerie flickering of the log fire. When they switched on the light Rasputin was still twitching.

In the interests of leaving an easier mess to clean up (after all, this is murder), they decide not to shoot him any more, move him off the nice carpet, turn off the light, lock the door and leave him to die. The fellows go upstairs and chatter about the bright future of Russia with this heretic out of the way. Nevertheless, Prince Felix is quite nervous and decides to check downstairs again, just to make sure the guy is really, as they say, good and dead.

There was no sign of life, no pulse. Rasputin was dead. But when Felix shook the body, its left eyelid trembled and its face began to twitch. Rasputin lived!

Felix was so terrified he could not move. But Rasputin, his eyes blazing, leapt, bellowing, to his feet and seized the Prince by the shoulder. He foamed at the mouth and repeating: 'Felix... Felix... Felix...' over and over again... Felix tore himself away... [and] ran out of the room shouting... that Rasputin was still alive.

Rasputin, on all fours, crawled up the stairs after him, still repeating his name... Purishkevich [a conspirator] drawing his revolver, ran down the stairs... But Rasputin, instead of continuing up the stairs, burst through the side door into the courtyard.

We can probably forgive Felix for running away in terror to his parents' apartments at this point, for that is exactly what he did. It was up to his pal Purishkevich to finish the job. He ran out into the courtyard, where Rasputin was leaving bloody footprints in the snow as he ran towards the gate shouting 'Felix! Felix! I will tell everything to the Czarina!' Biting his hand to concentrate, Purishkevich took careful aim with his revolver and shot four times, hitting Rasputin once in the shoulder and once in the head.

It may be prudent to remind the gentle reader that this Siberian had already been poisoned, shot, and left to bleed for half an hour, so this Pureshkevich was not going to take any chances. He wrote "I ran up and kicked him as hard as I could with my boot in the temple. He fell into the snow, tried to rise, but could only grind his teeth."

Rasputin finally succumbed a few moments later. Who's to tell what could have happened if he were in a warm place? So next time you watch one of those shoot-em-ups and the main character just won't die -- remember this dude. What did the press write about the incident? After all, one can't expect even the censored papers to remain silent on the death of the rumored lover of the Queen....

A certain person visited another person with some other persons. After the first person vanished, one of the other persons stated that the first person had not been at the house of the second person, although it is known that the second person had visited the first person late at night."

Hey, alright! And you think your newspaper stinks... Sweet Boney M., heal the pain:

RAH RAH RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They put some poison into his wine
RAH RAH RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
He drank it all and he said "I feel fine"

RAH RAH RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They didn't quit, they wanted his head
RAH RAH RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
And so they shot him till he was dead