17. The Tsar and Tsarina Ignored Reports of Rasputin’s Scandalous Lifestyle
Many reports of Rasputin’s unruly and unholy conduct – including the defilement of a nun – reached Tsar Nicholas’ ears. He dismissed them outright, or laughed them off with comments such as “the holy are always slandered“. The Tsar’s confessor investigated the reports of Rasputin’s misconduct, concluded there was truth in them, and advised Nicholas to distance himself from the charlatan. The Tsar, at the behest of his wife who was fiercely protective of Rasputin, banished his confessor from Saint Petersburg instead. By 1911, Rasputin’s notorious misconduct had become a national scandal, and turned the imperial family into a laughingstock.
Russia’s Prime Minister P.A. Stolypin sent the Tsar a detailed report of Rasputin’s misdeeds, which got him banished back to his Siberian village. Within a few months, however, the Tsarevich Alexei suffered another severe bout of hemophilia, and his desperate mother telegrammed Rasputin asking him to pray for her son. When Alexei got better soon after Rasputin wrote back, the Empress forced her husband to bring the charlatan back to Saint Petersburg. From then on the Tsar, anxious for peace at home, and convinced that Rasputin had a beneficial impact on his son, ignored all allegations of wrongdoing.