Queer Places:
Tsarskoye Selo, Garden St, 7, St Petersburg, Russia, 196601

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (January 21, 1869 - December 30, 1916) was born on January 21, 1869, in the small Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, located along the Tura River in the Tobolsk Governorate of the Russian Empire. He was born to a relatively prosperous peasant family, the son of Efim Vasilyevich Rasputin, a farmer and village headman, and Anna Yegorovna Parshukova. Little is documented regarding his formal education, and he spent much of his youth working the land, raising horses, and living a largely isolated life in the harsh Siberian wilderness.

As a young man, Rasputin's life took a sharp turn following a personal spiritual crisis and a reported vision of the Virgin Mary. He left his hometown, abandoning his wife, Praskovya Fyodorovna Dubrovina—with whom he had married in 1887 and had several children—to embark on a life as a wandering ascetic and pilgrim. He spent time at various religious sites, including a stint at a monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. During his travels, he developed a radical, unorthodox theological worldview. Influenced in part by underground, fringe Christian mystic groups like the Khlysty, Rasputin came to believe that true spiritual purity could only be achieved through physical sin followed by intense repentance. He argued that by engaging in temptation and debauchery, one could fully experience human weakness and subsequently humble oneself before God through remorse.

Rasputin arrived in St. Petersburg around 1903, where his magnetic charisma, intense, piercing eyes, and reputation as a holy man quickly drew the attention of high-society religious circles and influential figures within the Russian Orthodox Church. His ascent to power within the imperial court was cemented in 1905 when he was introduced to Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. The royal couple was desperate for help regarding their only son, Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from severe, life-threatening hemophilia. Rasputin managed to soothe the young heir and alleviate his bleeding episodes—largely through calming psychological presence and by advising against the administration of harsh Western medical treatments of the era, which often did more harm than good.

Earning the absolute trust of the Empress, who viewed him as a genuine man of God and a savior sent to protect the Romanov dynasty, Rasputin soon wielded immense informal political influence. During the volatile years leading up to and during World War I, his favor could make or break government ministers, bishops, and military officials. This unprecedented power sparked intense outrage and conspiracy among the Russian aristocracy, military elite, and conservative politicians, who viewed him as a dangerous charlatan destroying the reputation of the monarchy from the inside out.

Rumors, exaggerations, and political propaganda routinely weaponized Rasputin’s private life, depicting him as a depraved mystic engaged in massive orgies and widespread sexual misconduct. While historians confirm he frequently exploited his position to engage in illicit relationships and predatory behavior with vulnerable women, his life also intersects with the broader history of sexuality and LGBTQ history primarily through the circles in which he moved and the identities of his eventual assassins.

In the late twilight of his life, Rasputin became increasingly enmeshed in the complex, high-society circles of St. Petersburg elites, which included notable members of the aristocracy who practiced fluid or same-sex behaviors. Historians note that rumors and accounts from the era suggested Rasputin’s approach to physical intimacy and spiritual communion transcended strict binary boundaries, with observations indicating he was just as comfortable engaging with male associates within elite social networks as he was with female followers.

The most direct historical link between Rasputin and queer history centers around his primary assassin, Prince Felix Yusupov. Yusupov, scion of one of the wealthiest families in the Russian Empire, was notably bisexual and well-documented in his memoirs for moving within queer aristocratic circles, participating in cross-dressing performances in his youth, and maintaining romantic and intense platonic attachments to men. According to historical analyses of the murder plot, some accounts suggest that Yusupov’s hatred for Rasputin—and the complex psychological dynamic between them—was further complicated by the aristocratic subcultures of the era. Rumors persisted that Yusupov had initially approached Rasputin hoping for a cure for his same-sex desires, or conversely, that Rasputin had rejected or reciprocated romantic advances before political motives took over.

On the night of December 30, 1916 (December 17 under the old Russian calendar), Prince Yusupov, along with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and other co-conspirators, lured Rasputin to the Moika Palace. Believing they could neutralize him quietly, they fed him cyanide-laced cakes and wine. When the poison mysteriously failed to act quickly, a panicked Yusupov shot him. Believing him dead, the conspirators left him, but Rasputin miraculously revived and attempted to escape into the courtyard, where he was shot again, beaten, and finally dumped into the freezing waters of the Neva River. His body was recovered days later, and an autopsy confirmed he drowned.

Rasputin's assassination did not save the Romanov dynasty as his killers hoped; instead, it alienated the imperial couple further from the public and elite, paving the way for the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the ultimate collapse of the empire.

A memorial cross marks the site of Grigori Rasputin's original burial in Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), Saint Petersburg, Russia—specifically on the edge of the Alexander Park near the former site of the unfinished St. Seraphim Church.

Following his murder in December 1916, Rasputin was secretly buried here with the assistance of Empress Alexandra and Anna Vyrubova. However, shortly after the February Revolution in March 1917, a detachment of soldiers discovered the grave, exhumed the body, and burned it in the nearby woods. The plaque on the wooden memorial replicates the historical inscription left by the soldiers at the time of the cremation: "Тут сожжён труп Распутина Григория... в ночь на 11 декабря 1916 года" (note: historical accounts date the exhumation and burning to March 1917).

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