The Rasputin File (51 page)

I remember being carried through a crowd in Tsarskoe [Selo], and I saw the empress and all the grand duchesses in tears. I was carried to an ambulance and the empress jumped into it and, after sitting on the floor, held my head on her knees, and I whispered to her that I was dying… A priest came and administered the last rites. After which I heard them whispering to come say goodbye, that I would not survive till morning … The sovereign took my hand and said I had strength in my hand … I remember Rasputin coming in and saying to the others, ‘She will live but remain a cripple.’ I suffered inhuman torment day and night for six weeks.

From Nicholas’s diary for 2 January 1915: ‘I learned … there had been a train collision … Poor Anya along with a number of others was severely injured…and brought to the palace infirmary. I went down there at 11:00. Her relatives had come with her. Grigory arrived later.’

From Andronikov’s testimony before the Extraordinary Commission: ‘When he arrived, the entire royal family was standing by the injured Vyrubova. Vyrubova was absolutely hopeless…He started making some gestures and saying, “Anushka, listen to me.’ And she, who had not responded to anyone, suddenly opened her eyes.’

So, the tsarina once again saw the occurrence of a miracle.

But was it really a miracle? We have already said that Vyrubova’s position suddenly became more complicated in 1913–14. The game of being in love had led to an unexpected flash of jealousy on the part of the tsarina. And with a sense of Anya’s personality, we may wonder if that iron lady hovering between life and death was not acting out a scene. So that the tsarina would see what she had so dreamed of seeing — the Friend saved by the man of God! And that salvation would seem to the tsarina to be a mystical sign, a miracle requiring a renewal of their friendship.

‘That This Accident Should Be Profitable…’

Thus wrote Alix. Although the first thing she imagined was how Nicky would have to visit the Friend at her little house. And it irritated her.

Alix to Nicky: ‘26 Jan. 1915 … Longs to go over to her house…but lovy, fr. the very first you must then tell her that you cannot then come so
often … because if now not firm, we shall be having stories & love-scenes & rows like in the Crimea … You keep fr. the first all in its limits as you did now — so as that this accident should be profitable & with peaceful results … I have heaps of petitions our Friend brought here for you.’

The File, from the testimony of Feodosia Voino, thirty-six years old, the doctor’s assistant who became Anya’s maid:

I started working for Vyrubova after her accident on the train. That was at the end of January 1915. Vyrubova was then still in a very serious condition and could not have managed without outside help … A medical orderly started work after I did, when Vyrubova was able to move around. In the daytime I worked in the hospital near Vyrubova, and at night I went to her on my own and gave her massages and performed all the medical chores. When she was unable to get up, the tsarina and the children came to see her quite often, but the tsar rarely did.

The File, from the testimony of the medical orderly, Akim Zhuk, forty-nine years old, from the combined Tsarskoe Selo regiment, seconded to the infirmary for performance of the duties of medical orderly: ‘By order of the doctors who were treating Vyrubova, I started visiting her…It was necessary to sit Vyrubova up to change her dressings. I have great physical strength and Vyrubova was a heavy woman.’

Alix to Nicky: 27 Jan. 1915 … Ania gets on alright … Only speaks again of getting into her house. I foresee my life then!…I find her stomach & legs colossal (& most unappetising) — her face is rosy, but the cheeks less fat & shades under her eyes. She has lots of guests; but dear me — how far away she has slipped from me since her hideous behaviour, especially autumn, winter, spring of 1914 … cannot be at my ease with her as before.’

5 April 1915 … Ania has been wheeled by [Z]huk … tomorrow she wants to come to me! Oh dear, & I was so glad that for a long time we should not have her in the house, I am selfish … & want you to myself at last, and this means she is preparing to invade upon us often when you return.’

The Return ‘To Their Own Circles

The peasant had not abandoned the crippled Friend. As before, he made appointments to meet the tsars at Anya’s little house. He worked hard. He
had to restore their former friendship. And he knew that he would. Alix was too lonely without Anya.

From Zhuk’s testimony: ‘Rasputin in fact visited Vyrubova very often … Usually the entire royal family visited Vyrubova on such days — the tsar, the tsarina, the children, and Rasputin.’

And of course Our Friend won in the end. He revived their relationship. And it was not long before the great jealousy was forgotten and the great friendship was restored. And once more Alix and the Friend were inundating each other with letters, and once again they could not see enough of each other.

After the revolution, they would have to burn those letters, filling the fireplaces of two rooms with cinders. For the letters now ceased to be personal. Soon after their reconciliation the tsarina and her Friend took up the government of the country. The palace coup that they meant to carry out with Rasputin had begun.

The File, from Zhuk’s testimony:

When Vyrubova was unable to walk, the tsarina came to see her quite often … And later the tsarina came to see her quite often, and they continued to write to each other. The correspondence was so frequent that I had sometimes barely managed to bring Vyrubova back to her rooms from the royal chambers in the evening when letters from the tsarina would start to arrive. And it happened two or three times that they managed to exchange letters while Vyrubova was getting ready to go to bed … She drove to the palace every day from 3:00 till 5:00 p.m., and then in the evening from 9:30 until 12:00 or 1:00.

That’s the kind of enthusiasm Alix had brought to the cause.

But there was a ‘taboo’ that the Friend now scrupulously observed. ‘She would not go to the tsarina’s in the evening …on the days the sovereign was back from Headquarters.’ She was permitted to see him only the day before he left for the front. ‘Vyrubova was usually invited to the palace for dinner at the time of the tsar’s departure.’

Maybe There Had Been No Debauchery After All?

The revelry on Gorokhovaya Street continued unabated for the whole month of February 1915 and most of March. During that time Rasputin gave the external surveillance agents generous material.

‘12 February. Rasputin and an unidentified woman were followed to
Prince Andronikov’s. He returned at 4:30 a.m. in the company of six drunken men with a guitar. They sang and danced until 6:00.’

10 March. Seven or eight men and women arrived around 1:00 a.m. They sang songs and stomped and shouted, and then went somewhere unknown with Rasputin.’

‘11 March. Rasputin was followed to No. 8 Pushkin Street to the prostitute Tregubova’s.’

From an agent’s report: Tregubova, Vera Ievlevna, twenty-six years old, a baptized Jew. A woman of easy virtue who trades exclusively in acquainting rich people with Rasputin, for the most part Jews who want to put their commercial affairs in order. She once said that she makes up to 300 roubles a month. Visits Rasputin almost daily.’

In 1917 the Extraordinary Commission interrogated Vera Tregubova. And contained in the File is her testimony, which completely contradicts the agent’s characterization of her. In her testimony, Vera Tregubova declared that she was in fact a graduate of the Conservatory. And had inadvertently made Rasputin’s acquaintance ‘at the apartment of Lieutenant-General Dubelt’s elderly widow, Alexandra Ivanovna’. Living there were two other women, ‘a kind of landowner, who looked to be about fifty-five and was terribly fat … [and] Dubelt’s… sister, Lydia Ivanovna Kondyrev’. And at that time, ‘around 10:00 p.m. a man in a tight-fitting khaki coat and boots dropped by. I guessed it was Rasputin, whose portrait I had seen before … Calling him by first name and patronymic, the hostess Dubelt started telling Rasputin what a good thing it would be to get me a place as a singer on the imperial stage, that it was in general hard for me as a Jew to find any position. To which Rasputin answered, “I have many Jewish acquaintances, they’re all right, good people.”’

Towards the end of the evening the drunk Rasputin started making advances, according to Tregubova. ‘I’ll do anything you want, only come to my home. Come tonight at 12:00 midnight.’

‘Why should I come to you? I don’t sell my body,’ Tregubova proudly replied. ‘During this Rasputin was holding me by the hands and pawing me.’

To call a respectable singer who was seeing Rasputin for the first time a prostitute ‘who visits Rasputin daily’! Tregubova’s testimony raises doubts about the other external surveillance reports. Maybe all those reports about drinking bouts and debauchery had been made at the order of Rasputin’s enemies? Maybe nothing of the sort ever happened?

But unfortunately for Tregubova, Kondyreva also testified.

Lydia Ivanovna Kondyreva, seventy-eight, the widow of an actual state councillor, stated that it was all ‘quite the other way around’:

I was living at the home of my sister, A. I. Dubelt, when one evening at the end of 1914 a beautiful young lady came by, obviously someone of her acquaintance, who had brought Rasputin along with her, although before that my sister had been completely unacquainted with him. The young lady introduced Rasputin, announcing that he ‘wanted to visit you this evening’. Also in the apartment was Sofia Dmitrievna Oznobishina from Kazan, a beautiful, well-preserved woman of fifty-five and the widow of my cousin, who had held the rank of chamberlain. Rasputin was offered tea. The young lady who brought him enjoyed, in my opinion, friendly relations with Rasputin, calling him first Grigory Efimovich, then ‘Father’ and using the familiar form of address. Rasputin remained silent for the most part, and then taking advantage of a few moments alone with Oznobishina, he started stroking her hand, and patting her on the cheek, and calling her to him. Oznobishina regarded these attentions with humour and laughed out loud …He departed with the young lady…I asked my sister Dubelt about the beautiful young lady who had brought Rasputin. She told me that Vera Tregubova apparently did not have any regular employment and spent all her time with Rasputin. She had at one time lived at Albertini’s, a lady who rented furnished rooms through whom she had insinuated herself into my sister’s confidence.

So the agents were performing their duties honourably and may be trusted. All the more so, since Tregubova will herself continue to be an extremely active character in the external surveillance reports. For example, ‘26 May. Rasputin came home drunk in Manus’s motor with Tregubova and was passionately kissing her.’

All this time Dzhunkovsky had been sending the agents’ evidence on to Headquarters, where Nikolai Nikolaevich showed it to the tsar. And on coming back to Tsarskoe Selo, the tsar told Alix about it, provoking her fury. ‘My enemy’, she was already calling Dzhunkovsky.

So far they were just reports of drinking bouts of the kind the ‘tsars’ had heard about many times. What was needed was something that would stand out.

‘25 March. Rasputin has left for Moscow,’ the agents reported.

It was on that trip to Moscow that the delighted Dzhunkovsky, who had no idea where the dangerous peasant was leading him, got what he was looking for. In Moscow at the Gypsy restaurant, the Yar, a scandal took
place that gave impetus to a sequence of events that would in some measure affect the history of Russia.

Gypsy Moscow

After arriving in Moscow, Rasputin continued to booze. And the principal locus of that boisterous revelry was the distinctive, now almost vanished world of Gypsy Moscow.

Petrovsky Park is still in Moscow, but living around it then were the great Gypsy artistes who sang and danced at the famous Moscow restaurants, the Yar and the Strelna. These were Rasputin’s favourites. The winter garden spread out under a dome, with its palm trees, cactuses, and artificial grottoes. And the obliging waiters hurrying to the tables along paths extending from the grottoes.

The star attraction of the restaurant programme was the Gypsy ensemble the Lebedevs. The Gypsies performed three times a night for all the customers. And then the ensemble was invited into the private dining rooms. In each private room was a large table in front of which the ensemble arranged itself. The guests made requests and paid generously for each number. The soloists were frequently invited to sit down at the table. But the Gypsies did not drink while they were working, and the guests understood that. If a Gypsy woman was invited into a private room, her mother or sister would accompany her. She could not go into a private room alone. True, there were incidents in which blood was spilled. Once as the ensemble was leaving, a drunken officer tried to detain a pretty dancer in his private room. But her father ordered her to leave, and the drunken officer shot him.

The main revels, however, continued even after hours. Not infrequently after 1:00 a.m., when the restaurant closed, its habitués would follow the Lebedevs home to their ‘Gypsy camp’.

Ivan Ivanovich Rom-Lebedev was one of the last of the celebrated clan that had been the pride of Moscow in Rasputin’s day. I knew that tall handsome old man. He lived into his eighties and was a playwright and founder of the Moscow Gypsy Theatre. Here is what he told me in his reminiscences about the nocturnal revels at their ‘camp’.

After entering the home, the guests would seat themselves around a table and waiters would fill their goblets. And the ensemble would start with the traditional song:

For Friendly Conversation,
Around the banquet table,
In the custom of our fathers,
We sing this song to you.

On such nights, Rom-Lebedev recalled, ‘Although a boy I did not sleep. I eagerly listened to what was going on in the guest hall. Leo Tolstoy’s sons would come … Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich came more than once.’ But Rom-Lebedev would remember what happened in March 1915 for the rest of his life.