Rasputin (17 page)

Instead, Samarin was setting to work with his own broom, denouncing Rasputin’s coffin-loving friend, Bishop Varnava, as an unbalanced fanatic. Varnava was by this time preaching obscure sermons that the war was caused by abortion, a practice introduced to Russia by the Germans. The Tsarina defended him stoutly: ‘
Bishop
Varnava comes from the people… he understands them.’ Samarin’s more serious complaint was that
Varnava
had conducted an important religious ceremony, a laudation, without Synod approval. The Tsarina had no time for such excuses: ‘Samarin intends getting rid of him [Varnava] because… he is good to Gr.’

Varnava was summoned by the Synod to Petrograd. While the hostile churchmen sat cross-legged,
smirking
and catcalling, Varnava was forced to stand. He had brought the Tsar’s telegram giving him permission to sing the laudation. The telegram did nothing to appease his accusers. The Tsarina, outraged, leapt to Varnava’s defence, telling her husband that he ‘should hurry with clearing out Samarin as he & Synod intending to do more horrors and he [Varnava] has to go there again, poor man, to be tortured’.

The unsuspecting Samarin went to the Tsar’s
military
headquarters to complain about Varnava, only to discover that he himself had fallen from favour: the Tsar asked him pleasantly about his family, then ordered the elderly Goremykin to call him from the dining table and tell him he was fired.

That same day, Alexander Volzhin was
appointed
head of the Synod. Volzhin had been suggested by ‘pot-belly’ Khvostov, and came with the endorsement of the Tsarina: ‘He made me a perfect impression… one sees he is full of the best intentions and understands the needs of our Church perfectly well.’ Her support had been assured after he asked her to bless him: ‘wh. touched me very much’.

The Tsarina was momentarily satisfied with the Synod, particularly when she was presented by its
members
with a Testimonial and Image in recognition of her
work with war victims: ‘Since Catherine, no Empress personally received them alone. Grigory is delighted.’ Rasputin himself had been gratified when, on his last birthday, in January 1916, a speech was delivered in the Synod celebrating his importance for the State.

But the new leader, Volzhin, did not prove so well intentioned as the Tsarina had hoped. He had serious reservations about Rasputin’s protégés. Aside from the troublesome Varnava, there was Pitirim, who had once installed his male lover in a mansion and was later to be accused of stealing 100,466 roubles from a
monastery
. Ministers were already boycotting his liturgies at St Isaac’s Cathedral and Rodzyanko had railed at him: ‘Rasputin and men like him must be expelled and your own name cleared from the opprobrium of being looked upon as a nominee of Rasputin… Your Eminence, your very looks betray you.’ Yet Pitirim prided himself on his forbidding looks; some of his followers swore he had a halo.

Then there was Isidor, who had become a bishop in 1909, only to be stripped of his rank, two years later, for sodomising a lay brother. Rasputin had been behind his restoration as a bishop earlier in the year; his faith in
Isidor
was matched by the Tsarina, who wrote on October 1 1916 that she had spent a ‘quiet peaceful’ evening with Brother Grigory and Bishop Isidor: ‘We talked so well & calmly – such a peaceful harmonious atmosphere… Had a nice evening at A’s [Anna Vyrubova’s] yesterday – our Friend, His son & the bish Isidor.’

All three bishops were doing suspiciously well. Varnava stood to be promoted to Archbishop within
months and Pitirim had been made Metropolitan of Petrograd, an appointment endorsed by Khvostov and Anna Vyrubova, for which Rasputin mysteriously
received
75,000 roubles. Isidor, arguably most powerful of all, was now installed at Tsarskoye Selo as the
Tsarina’s
favourite. When she heard of Volzhin’s disapproval of the bishops, she was furious, dismissing Volzhin as ‘a coward & frightened of public opinion’; he was ‘too pompous’ and ‘quite unfit’ to lead the Synod.

Under Volzhin’s influence, the number of Synod members who were ‘not ours’ was growing. Heated
discussions
were held over who would hold the Synod’s number two position. Rasputin suggested Prince Nicholas Zhevakov, a mystic who had been visited by a vision in which the Russian Army was victorious after
bringing
a certain icon to the front. The Tsarina promptly wrote to her husband: ‘Rasputin finds you ought to tell Volzhin you wish Zhevakov to be named his side.’ The Tsarina liked to lend authority to Rasputin’s tips by
substituting
‘finds’ for ‘thinks’.

But Rasputin found, instead, that Volzhin had had enough. In the summer of 1916, Volzhin asked to be relieved of his post. Rasputin and Pitirim immediately came up with a replacement: a short, be-wigged man called Nicholas Raev. Raev had served in the Ministry of Education, but his most recent enterprise had been a high-stakes gambling club. The Tsarina extolled the virtues of pupils at a school that operated under his auspices: ‘His girls behaved beautifully’ at a time when ‘there were rows in all the schools and universities’.

The Tsarina met Raev on June 27 1916 and found
him an ‘excellent man’. Raev and Rasputin talked for more than an hour, after which Rasputin pronounced him ‘a real Godsend’. Raev was duly appointed head of the Synod on August 20 1916, with the mystic, Prince Zhevakov, as his assistant.

T
he ructions created by the Tsarina and Rasputin in the Synod were reflected in the Government. The months leading up to the Revolution saw four
different
prime ministers, five ministers of the Interior and four ministers of agriculture. Rasputin had at various points been behind the appointments of Khvostov, as Minister of the Interior, Raev, as leader of the Synod and Beletsky, as Director of the Department of Police. The Tsarina’s words had borne some fruit: ‘9 Sept 1915… Clean out all, give Goremykin new ministers to work with & God will bless you & their work.’

In fact, as an advisor and recommender of
candidates
Rasputin proved increasingly unreliable. His ever failing ‘gift for knowing people’ led to his frequently changing his mind and, on at least one occasion,
recommending
two rival candidates for the same government post.

On January 20 1916 Boris Sturmer replaced the
elderly
Goremykin as Prime Minister. The good news for the Tsarina and Rasputin was that Sturmer was as much ‘ours’ as Goremykin. Nevertheless, Sturmer, at 69, was only nine years younger than Goremykin and Rasputin
was no respecter of age: ‘He’s old, but he’ll do.’ While regretting the departure of Goremykin, the Tsarina was gratified that Sturmer ‘very much valued Gr which is a good thing.’

But Rodzyanko denounced Sturmer as ‘an utter nonentity’. The new American ambassador, David R. Francis, was exasperated by Sturmer’s habit of looking in the mirror and twirling his moustaches during meetings. Sturmer’s moustaches were indeed remarkable, immaculately turned up and appearing to act as hooks to a lavish tongue of a beard. The French Ambassador Paleologue described him as a ‘false Father Christmas with moist red lips and a crafty smile, curiously
repellent
’ and insisted that Sturmer had been chosen ‘on account of his insignificance and servility’.

Paleologue’s evaluation was borne out by Rasputin’s threats: ‘If I say the word they’ll kick the old guy out’ and ‘Sturmer had better stay on his string or his neck will get broken.’ Any attempt to break free of his string was met with a rebuke: ‘Don’t you dare go against Mama’s wishes.’ As it turned out, Sturmer never went against Mama’s wishes, even taking upon himself, years later, the onerous task of burning Rasputin’s files.

For all his inadequacies, Sturmer also took on the job of Foreign Minister. The controversy surrounding his over-promotion was occasionally noted even by the Tsarina, who once suggested that he should take some time out: ‘Protopopov and our Friend both find for the quiet of the Duma, Sturmer ought to say he’s ill for three weeks.’ But she had been unable to stomach the preceding Foreign Minister, Serge Sazanov, particularly
mistrusting his good relations with Paleologue and the British Ambassador, George Buchanan, and finally
dismissing
him as ‘long-nosed’ and a ‘pancake’.

The widely esteemed Minister of War, Alexei Polivanov, was next to go: ‘Is he not our Friend’s
enemy
?’ demanded the Tsarina. Polivanov had objected to Rasputin’s having access to four high-powered war office cars, all of them too fast to be trailed. The Tsarina grew impatient with her husband: ‘Lovey don’t dawdle, make up your mind, it is far too serious.’ When
Polivanov
finally fell, the Tsarina was momentarily appeased: ‘Now I shall sleep well.’ Polivanov’s replacement was a die-hard monarchist, General Dmitri Shuvalev, who was obsessed with footwear, turning every conversation to the whys and wherefores of boots.

The most controversial of the Tsarina and
Rasputin’s
campaigns, however, was for the promotion of
Protopopov
. In September 1916 the newly appointed Minister of the Interior was hissed at and jeered when he appeared in the Duma wearing an outlandish uniform that he had designed himself. He was inclined to sob and was addicted to the sinister Tibetan Dr Badmaev’s
powders
for male potency. But the Tsarina was only interested in Protopopov’s attitude to Rasputin. Protopopov had established some sort of friendship with
Rasputin
; but he was sufficiently nervous of public opinion to visit the flat in thick dark glasses. The Tsarina wrote that Protopopov ‘likes our Friend since at least four years’ and ‘Grigory begs you earnestly to name Protopopov there… His love for Russia & you is so intense.’

When the Tsar had finally agreed to promote
Protopopov, the Tsarina was jubilant: ‘Our Friend says you have done a very wise act in naming him.’ She
wasted
no time, once Protopopov was in place, in making use of him: ‘Our Friend begged for you to speak of all these things to Protopopov.’ The new Minister of the Interior embraced his power with gusto. Among his first projects was the orchestratration of letters from the Russian people to the Tsarina containing, as Gleb Botkin put it, ‘extravagant expressions of unbounded loyalty’. Protopopov insisted to an unreceptive Rodzyanko: ‘I feel that I alone can save her [Russia].’

The Imperial Court Director, Mossolov, was once obliged to have a three-hour meeting with
Protopopov
, during which he read files while the Minister talked, jumping from subject to subject. As Mossolov recalled: ‘I could see plainly that I had to deal with a lunatic.’ He subsequently described Protopopov to the Tsarina as ‘a muddle-headed person’ and was gratified by her
response
: ‘We so rarely hear the truth from anyone.’ But in October 1916, she showed no sign of believing
Protopopov
to be muddle-headed, writing to her husband: ‘Sturmer and Protopopov both completely believe in our Friend’s wonderful, God-sent wisdom.’

In desperation, Mossolov sought Rasputin out at Gorokhovaya Street, with the intention of ordering him to stop meddling in the promotion of ministers and, specifically, to oust Protopopov. The oddly matched companions drank three glasses of Madeira in silence, before Mossolov felt sufficiently braced to issue his unwelcome orders. During the ensuing discussion Rasputin had several fits of pique: ‘If that’s it, I’ll pack my bags
and go; I see I’m no longer wanted here… Do you think Papa and Mama will let you do what you like?’

As it happened, the Tsar already had some
sympathy
with Mossolov’s view: ‘Our Friend’s ideas about people are sometimes queer,’ he mused to his wife, even before the promotion. He agreed with Mossolov that Protopopov ‘jumps from one idea to another and can’t stick to one subject’. After expressing new doubts about the Minister to his wife, he now begged ‘please don’t mix in our Friend’. But ‘mixing in’ was, of course,
unavoidable
: the Tsar was soon in receipt of a 238-word telegram from Rasputin; the Man of God warned,
confusingly
, that, without Protopopov, he would be like a turnip without teeth.

‘Mama’ visited the military headquarters in order to plead Protopopov’s cause and the Tsar, of course, backed down. This would have been a particular bone of contention for yet another prominent minister, Alexander Trepov. The Tsar had managed to make an uncharacteristic, unilateral decision to remove Sturmer as Prime Minister and replace him with the capable Trepov. But Trepov had agreed to take the appointment only on condition that Protopopov was fired. The Tsarina was livid: ‘I could hang Tr for his bad counsels… Trepov does not trust me and our Friend.’ Trepov was to last 47 days as Prime Minister.