History - St Petersburg - page 400

and redemption: binge drinking and engaging in sexual orgies, and then praying
for forgiveness.
St Petersburg's high society was receptive to Rasputin's teachings. Despite
his heavy drinking and sexual scandals - or perhaps because of them - he
earned the adoration of an army of aristocratic ladies. More notable, Rasputin
endeared himself to Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra, largely as he
had the power to ease the pain of their son Alexey, who suffered from haemo-
philia.
The holy man's scandalous behaviour and his influence over the tsarina
evoked the ire of the aristocracy. The powerful Prince Felix Yusupov and the
tsar's cousin Grand Duke Dmitry decided that the Siberian peasant must be
stopped. On a wintry night in 1916, they invited Rasputin to the sumptuous
Yusupov Palace ( CLICK HERE ) overlooking the Moyka. They plied the monk with
wine and cakes that were laced with potassium cyanide, which seemed to have
no effect. In a panic, the perpetrators then shot the priest at close range. Alarm-
ingly, this didn't seem to get the job done either. Rasputin finally drowned when
he was tied up in a sheet and dropped into the icy Neva River. He was buried in
secret at Pushkin.
Besides mystical powers and lecherous behaviour, Grigory Rasputin is fam-
ous for another exceptional attribute: his enormous penis (30cm, if you must
know). Legend has it that Rasputin's foes did not stop at murder. Yusupov's
maid supposedly found Rasputin's severed organ when cleaning the apartment
after the murder.
Which explains the prize artefact at the so-called Museum of Erotica ( CLICK
HERE ) : it is indeed Rasputin's preserved penis. Even in its detached state, the
Mad Monk's member is still attracting attention.