CONSPIRACY: The Mad Monk Who Controlled the Romanovs

September 21, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

On the night of December 16, 1916, in a candlelit cellar beneath a palace in St. Petersburg, a prince sat and watched a peasant eat cake. The prince was Felix Yusupov, one of the richest men in the world. The peasant was Grigori Rasputin, and the cakes were packed with cyanide—enough, Yusupov had been told, to kill several men. Rasputin kept eating. He asked for wine; Yusupov poured glass after glass, each laced with the same poison. Rasputin drank, complained his throat was scratchy, and asked the prince to sing. Hours passed. Finally, Yusupov grabbed a revolver and shot Rasputin in the chest. The man crashed to the floor. Then he opened his eyes. According to Yusupov, Rasputin lunged for his throat, foaming at the mouth. The prince tore himself loose and ran. Rasputin followed on all fours into the snow, roaring his name. Co-conspirators fired again and again until he dropped. They wrapped the body, drove it to the river, and shoved it through a hole in the ice. Days later, an autopsy found his lungs full of water: after the poison, after the bullets, the thing that killed the mad monk was drowning.

That is the story people have told for more than a century. The problem is, it might not even be true. The deeper you dig, the more you realize the famous version of Rasputin—the mad monk with the hypnotic eyes—was built piece by piece by the people who wanted him gone.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **The Unkillable Legend** - The host presents the famous story of Rasputin's murder: poisoned, shot, and drowned, yet still alive under the ice.
2 (07:52) **Russia's Occult-Obsessed Court** - The host sets the stage for Rasputin's rise by describing the political and spiritual climate of early 1900s Russia.
3 (10:54) **The Eyes That Hypnotized a Capital** - The host explains how Rasputin’s intense presence and a dangerous rumor helped him gain a following before he arrived in St. Petersburg.
4 (12:04) **The Black Princesses and the Bleeding Heir** - The host details how Rasputin used his peasant authenticity to charm the nobility and gain access to the royal family through their desperate need to save their son.
5 (15:53) **The Miracle at Spala** - The host presents the key event that cemented Rasputin’s power: his apparent ability to heal the dying Tsarevich from a thousand miles away.
6 (20:18) **The Making of a Monster** - The host explains how the aristocracy’s outrage and a series of scandalous rumors built the myth of Rasputin the "mad monk."
7 (24:23) **The First Assassination Attempt** - The host describes a real, failed attempt on Rasputin’s life that foreshadowed the violence to come.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Grigori Rasputin Nicholas II

Show Notes

In the final years of Imperial Russia, a mysterious peasant mystic named Grigori Rasputin rose to extraordinary influence over the royal Romanov family. Trusted by the Empress for his apparent ability to ease her son's illness, Rasputin became a figure of endless rumor, accused of everything from manipulation and debauchery to holding secret sway over the crumbling empire. His dramatic murder in 1916, said to have required poison, bullets, and drowning to finally kill him, only deepened the legends surrounding him. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the strange life and death of Rasputin, the mystic who became a lightning rod for a dynasty in collapse, and the myths of occult control that continue to surround him more than a century later.

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