The Rasputin File (67 page)

Before long Rasputin would himself go out the same back entrance to his death.

The husbands were taken round the apartment so that they could convince themselves that their wives were not there. After that, the agents immediately followed them in order to identify them, so that they too got into the police reports. The ladies, however, like their frivolous predecessors, did not turn up at the apartment again. And the peasant himself, frightened by the husbands, ‘quieted down for several days and was afraid to leave the apartment’. But after a few days it started all over again.

‘14 January. He returned home at 7:00 a.m. completely drunk in the company of Osipenko and an unknown man … He broke the large pane of glass in the front door of his building, and a swelling was visible by his nose — apparently he had fallen down somewhere.’

‘17 January. An unknown lady came to see Rasputin after 11:00 and stayed until 3:00 a.m.’ The lady did not turn up again, and the external surveillance agents failed to establish her name.

Three in the morning was in fact his usual time. The night was still young. And with the cry, ‘Let’s go see the Gypsies!’ he would rouse his drunken company. And the half-asleep revellers would race off to a restaurant by carriage. And the utterly exhausted Gypsies would entertain their tireless guest till dawn. It was as if he sensed that he was seeing his last winter and was rushing to take pleasure in a wild debauch. Actually, the drinking bouts of rich Russian merchants at the time differed little then from the peasant’s frenzies. The looming apocalypse was driving people mad.

In the File is the testimony of Isaac Bykhovsky, forty years old, a coal industrialist of Jewish faith from Kharkov. He came to Petrograd ‘to arrange a profitable little deal’. And his business associates in Petrograd took him to see Rasputin. In appreciation for Rasputin’s having given one of them ‘a business card addressed to Shakhovskoy, the minister of trade and industry. On the card was written, “Receive him.” Shakhovskoy did in fact receive him without his having to wait, although the meeting failed to yield any results.’ The coal industrialists gave Rasputin no money and restricted themselves to a single banquet. Rasputin ‘came at the height of the dinner
and instantly buried his head in his bowl, ate only soup and fish, and drank Madeira … and then he made a telephone call, and a young Georgian appeared, who sat down by Rasputin, calling him “Father” and apparently ingratiating himself with him.’

(The Georgian was the officer Pankhadze, who, like the majority of Georgian noblemen, called himself ‘prince’ and was at the time betrothed to Rasputin’s daughter Matryona. Thanks to Rasputin, he had avoided the front by doing his military service with the reserve battalions garrisoned in Petrograd. Vyrubova characterized him this way in the File: ‘Pankhadze, a draft-dodger who did not wish to go into the army.’)

During the dinner

the Georgian kept pressing us to go see a Gypsy chorus in New Village, where, according to him, they were expecting Rasputin. We all drove off to see the chorus together, since when we came out an automobile was already waiting for Rasputin. A large group was waiting for Rasputin at the Gypsies. There Rasputin let himself go and danced the whole time and drank Madeira. I was impressed by his dancing. Sometimes he would whirl in place for half an hour, so that it was amazing to me that he didn’t get dizzy. One of my colleagues didn’t feel well, and around 2:00 I left the chorus [so he and the colleague slipped away without paying]. The rest of the company remained until 7:00 a.m. and kept ordering wine…for Brusilovsky [his other colleague] who ended up paying for everything.

And again they brought him home drunk before dawn, and again he tried to get into the apartment of a certain Katya in the same building, and again he was not allowed in, and, drunk, he tried to kiss the sleepy porter, but she lazily pushed him away. His apartment on Gorokhovaya Street had long since become a lair. As the investigator Simpson wrote in his summarizing ‘Resolution’:

Living there for months on end in the intervals between the trips of her hospital train was the sister of mercy Laptinskaya, whose erotic exercises with Rasputin were, in the absence of blinds, observable from the street… [Other] guests were the beautiful Siberian Elena Patushinskaya, whose notary husband had through Rasputin’s efforts been transferred to Odessa, where he shot himself… the beautiful baptized Jew Volynskaya, who had paid with herself and with cash for her husband’s pardon through Rasputin’s efforts; the Baroness Kusova who wanted to secure a better position for her husband, an officer attached to a Crimean regiment … the Gypsy singer Varvarova, who cost him too much money and who occupied him in every way … the lubricious … barrister’s wife Sheila Lunts … the proprietor
of the restaurant the Villa Rhode, who put wine and women at Rasputin’s disposal; the erotomaniac…Zhukovskaya…Prince Andronikov; Doctor Badmaev; the agent of numerous intelligence services, Manasevich-Manuilov; the inspector of public schools Dobrovolsky and his young wife; Molchanov, the son of the exarch of Georgia … who saw to his own and his father’s affairs; the Jew Tregubova…the diamond dealer and gambling house impresario Simanovich; and the beautiful Princess Shakhovskaya.

And at the centre was the continually drunk peasant entangled in religious games that were ever more clearly turning into morbid lust, into a peculiar form of narcotic.

In the File his former close friend Sazonov related a remarkable scene to the investigator:

Rasputin was aware of his fall, and that consciousness made him suffer … I remember six months before his death he came to see me drunk and, bitterly sobbing, told me that he had spent the entire night carousing with Gypsies and had squandered two thousand, and that he had to be at the tsarina’s at 6:00. I took him to my daughter’s room, where between his sobs Rasputin said, ‘I am a devil. I am a demon. I am sinful, whereas before I was holy. I am not worthy of staying in this pure room.’ I saw that his sorrow was real.

‘Bond’ Captures The House On Gorokhovaya

At the end of 1915 Colonel Komissarov reported to his masters that Manasevich had suddenly acquired enormous influence in the apartment on Gorokhovaya Street. And, as the agents recorded, he ever more frequently accompanied the peasant in the official car to Tsarskoe Selo. Komissarov spoke with astonishment of the innovations that had appeared in Rasputin’s home. Manasevich had brought in a typewriter and a typist. With the aid of that advanced technology Our Friend’s thoughts were now being conveyed to Tsarskoe Selo in printed form without delay. At the bottom of them Rasputin put a cross and signed his name in a pompous scribble.

Rasputin’s dealings with Tsarskoe Selo now proceeded without interruption.

At first Beletsky and Khvostov came to the conclusion that the clever adventurer had merely decided to use Father Grigory to make the mighty Friend’s acquaintance. Only later would the two heads of the secret police
realize that they had missed the point. For it was in fact then that Manasevich found a future prime minister for the country. And it was to discuss that most surprising candidacy with the Friend that the new close friends hurried off to Tsarskoe Selo.

The Ungrateful Lover

The only thing that Khvostov was able to establish through his agents was that the decision had indeed been made to let Prime Minister Goremykin go. And the stupid Khvostov decided that his own hour had finally arrived! He just did not understand Rasputin’s attitude towards him. As Colonel Komissarov rightly put it, ‘Rasputin continually felt his antipathy and could not, despite all of Khvostov’s services, overcome his own.’ Khvostov let loose a flurry of activity. He contrived to enlist Rasputin’s new favourite among his advocates. And through Manasevich to bring Rasputin around in quick order.

That, it seemed, would be very easy to do. For Manasevich at the time had himself come to see Khvostov on a matter of some piquancy. Manasevich was in love with the actress Lerma-Orlova. This pretty half-French woman, a lady of the Petrograd demi-monde like Sheila Lunts, had completely turned the head of the amorous and uncommonly ugly Manasevich. But unfortunately the ill-fated ‘Bond’ had learned that while his lover was taking money from him, she had at absolutely no charge been making a gift of her charms to a young Swede, the riding master Petz, who was giving her lessons. And the actress was so absorbed in her study of riding that Manasevich had been quite unable to visit her longed-for bed. Khvostov delightedly agreed to help the unhappy Manasevich. As a result, poor Petz was charged with selling horses to the German army through Sweden. He was sent first to prison and then deported. And Manasevich again started seeing the frightened actress.

Khvostov thought he could now expect a reciprocal effort from the grateful lover. But the naive ‘Fat Belly’ had overlooked the fact that such people are never grateful.

For ‘Bond’ at the time was engaged in a great game of arranging clandestine meetings between Rasputin and the candidate that he — Manasevich — had found.

The Needed ‘Old Chap’

Beletsky learned about those meetings from his agents in 1916 at the start of the new year. Both the identity of the candidate and the rather sinister setting of the meetings themselves astonished him. It turned out that Rasputin was being driven at night to the Peter and Paul Fortress — to the Russian Bastille. And there in the commandant’s quarters the new candidate would be waiting, one whom Rasputin had already managed to nickname the ‘Old Chap’. He was Boris Stürmer, a sixty-seven-year-old member of the Council of State.

Accompanying Stürmer was a youngish woman, a certain Nikitina, daughter of the fortress commandant. As Vyrubova has described her, that maid of honour of the empress ‘enjoyed the reputation of being a frivolous person, and efforts were made to keep her out of the palace’. Even Stürmer’s age was not ‘proof against the rumours circulating about them’.

It was Nikitina who had arranged the secret meetings between Rasputin and Stürmer in her father’s office at the fortress.

In 1917 in the same Peter and Paul Fortress where he and Rasputin had secretly met, Stürmer, now a prisoner there, would answer the investigators’ questions.

On learning about Stürmer through his agents, Beletsky had at first been amazed. But on reflection he recognized that the choice was not at all bad. True, Stürmer had an awkward German name. But there were lots of German names at court. On the other hand, Stürmer ‘was a man of tested loyalty to the throne who had a vast number of acquaintances in court circles’. In 1914 there had been a famous political salon at Stürmer’s home. And in contrast to the usual unrestrained criticism of Rasputin, criticism of the constructive variety had held sway there — that is, how to save the drowning government without touching Rasputin. Beletsky himself had been a frequent guest at the salon.

‘Stürmer’s circle,’ Beletsky testified, ‘included the cream of the Russian aristocracy and the influential bureaucracy: members of the Council of State, senators, scions of the oldest Russian families…governors, church hierarchs.’

So Alexandra Fyodorovna knew: the Stürmer circle had not called for the head of the favourite. But all the earlier attempts of the elderly statesman to return to active political life had been unavailing: his German name had got in the way. Now, however, his hour had come.

Beletsky easily figured out who had originated the idea of Stürmer. In the days of the mighty Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve, Stürmer had
served as head of the Department of Police, where Manasevich had been an agent in special services. Grasping the situation, Beletsky summoned Manasevich to his office. ‘I asked him, “Why did you betray Khvostov?” He apologized and expressively remarked, “It will go better for you under Stürmer.”’ And Beletsky, hoping to establish good relations with the future prime minister, decided to conceal the secret auditioning of Stürmer from Khvostov. ‘I assured Stürmer through Manasevich of my favour and my readiness to pass on to him any intelligence known to me.’

Next, the tireless Manasevich arranged a meeting between Sturmer and Metropolitan Pitirim. Manasevich later testified that the churchman had asked him, ‘Won’t the replacement of Goremykin by someone with a foreign name raise questions?’ Manasevich replied, ‘What is important is the man not the name.’ And he added, ‘Stürmer is a new person as far as the Duma is concerned, and that is why the Duma members will be uncomfortable voting for him immediately.’ And the cautious Pitirim, having behind him the tsarina and Rasputin, composed a favourable note to the Tsar about Stürmer’s past activities.

Manasevich, who had once been expelled from special services and who had stained himself with numerous shady dealings, was promised the rank of official in charge of special commissions attached to the future prime minister. He was becoming an agent for Rasputin and the ladies’ cabinet in the office of the prime minister. Everyone’s dreams were realized: Stürmer had been appointed prime minister, Manasevich had joined the government, and the tsarina and Rasputin had found a new prime minister who would obey.

The time had come to inform Khvostov. Fearing the rage and vengeance of the stupid ‘Fat Belly’, Manasevich, who liked to operate on several fronts at once, decided to forestall events and go to see Khvostov on his own. He told him about Stürmer’s future appointment as prime minister and explained that it had all been the work of Rasputin and Pitirim. Khvostov flew into a rage. And thirsted for revenge.

Meanwhile, events were following their course.

Stürmer was summoned by the tsar on 20 January 1916 at 3:00 p.m. and walked out as prime minister. Prime Minister Goremykin, who arrived at 5:00 with his scheduled report, left to his complete astonishment with a dismissal.

And soon afterwards Manasevich received the post of official for special commissions attached to the office of the prime minister.

In the days after Stürmer’s appointment, a most important meeting took place. Despite all of Manasevich’s reassurances and his conversations with the ‘old fellow’, Rasputin with his animal intuition sensed sullen hostility on the part of Stürmer.