Ra Ra Rasputin

No, I haven’t gone completely mad and burst into an old Boney M hit from very many years ago but having recently taken a Baltic Cruise and visited the beautiful city of St Petersburg we visited many famous sights and beautiful palaces, and when hearing the story of the last Tsar of Russia Nicholas III and his tragic assassination along with all of his immediate family as well as several faithful servants it piqued my interest so in a nutshell this is a small part of Russian history!

The Romanovs ruled Russia for over 300 years and the last Tsar – Nicholas III heir to the dynasty came to the throne at 26 years old in 1894 after his father Alexander III passed away.  Very soon after this he married Alexandra whom he had met when she was 12 years old.  She was well connected as she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria.  Many people felt the young Tsar had not been properly prepared and was not ready to take on the responsibility of ruling Europe’s largest country.  A series of unpopular decisions early in his reign added to the civil unrest of the Russian people already wracked in political turmoil and struggling with extreme poverty.  The rich were very rich and the poor certainly were very poor.  This is reflected in every palace I visited in St Petersburg where no expense was spared and hadn’t been for the 300 years of the reign of the Romanov family.

Throughout his reign, Nicholas felt a growing discontent from his subjects, he spent a long time away fighting in wars that the people were not behind and the casualties during the First World War were huge to Russia. With so many deaths, the country fell apart as there was no-one left to work the farms or transport goods and the people began to riot. As he was away so much, Nicholas left the running of the country pretty much to his wife Tsarina Alexandra.

The Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin who had gained the trust of the Royal’s after allegedly curing the young heir to the throne Alexei of Hemophilia also became a trusted adviser and several roles in the Government were filled with his appointees, allowing him great influence over matters of state.  There were rumours of a relationship between the Empress and Rasputin – hence the Boney M song!  In December of 1916 a group of aristocrats tried to murder Rasputin in a cellar at the very grand Yusupov Palace and when I visited that very room where it supposedly took place it is enough to give you chills!  Apparently he drank poisoned  wine and ate pastries laced with cyanide and still didn’t die – he was shot three times and then eventually drowned in the icy Neva River.

The Bolshevik revolutionaries then took control of Russia and forced the abdication of Nicholas II and his heir Alexei and the whole family was placed under house arrest despite applying to both the British and French Governments for asylum.  In July of 1918 the seven Romanovs along with their cook and chauffeur were murdered and their bodies were covered in acid and then burned.

In 1991 all but two of the Royal’s remains were found in a forest near Yekaterinburg and re-buried in The Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg. It took until 2007 to locate the remains of Alexei & Maria and despite DNA proof these remains still remain in a Russian archive and not buried with the rest of their family.

If you would like to visit Russia – do it on a cruise for as long as you do the organised excursions you will not have the expense of a visa – it is included.  Contact me for more info!