in 1868.
His father was Alexander III.
His mother, Princess Dagmar
of Denmark,
who in Russia took the name
of Marie Fyodorovna.
He was privately tutored
at the palace.
In 1894, he married
the German Princess
Alix of Hesse,
who became the Czarina
Alexandra Fyodorovna.
Nicholas II succeeded to
the throne in 1894.
The coronation festivities were
marred by the Khodynka,
a bloody trampling on people
in Khodynka meadow in Moscow.
In the course of its 300-year
history, the Romanov dynasty
had survived many upheavals:
the peasant insurrections led
by Razin and Pugachev,
the Decembrist uprising,
the Narodnaya Volya movement,
and the revolution of 1905.
However, never before had
the future
looked so ominous
for the royal family.
Nothing short of a miracle
could save the situation.
I. F. Manassevitch-Manouilov
"Manouilo", "Vanka Cain",
journalist
I.L. Goremykin,
Prime Minister
A.A. Vyrubova,
friend of the Imperial family
You think there's no way
the project can go through?
It was hopeless to start with.
A million rubles, all for a whim!
It would mean to bring the railroad
to the spring.
If Mr. Voyeikov wants to provision
his troops with mineral water,
he'd better transport it
at his own expense.
What kind of attitude is that?
Do we measure patriotism in rubles?
I don't know, Ivan Fyodorovich.
But it's a miracle! A spring
suddenly appeared out of nowhere!
Russian mineral water "Kouvaka"!
It cures anything!
- Oh, come on!
- That's really so!
Yesterday Chaliapin was singing
Mephistopheles, and...
It'd make the soldiers a lot happier
to think their country had done it.
- No, no, and no, Ivan Fyodorovich!
- To spend a million rubles!
- The way things are at the moment.
- I'm not sure...
Grigory Efimovich promised
the general...
Here's the general now.
Do you mean that Grigory
Efimovich has drunk the water?
He has and approved of it!
Ivan Loginovich!
My dear, you know of my high
regard for Grigory Efimovich!
You mustn't criticize a man
of the God.
Mineral water!
The soldiers are starving!
They need bread!
Man doesn't live by bread alone!
- Oh, forget it.
- What do you mean, forget?
Rather than pillage poor Mother
Russia, pity her!
You're the one who should pity her.
It would help you to run her better!
Ivan Loginovich, I'm losing
my faith in you.
There is no faith any more! Not
in anything, nor in anyone!
Leave me alone!
Speaking.
Listen to your cough,
you old walrus!
It must be God's punishment
for your greed, you old hippo!
Who is this?
Clean out your ears, they've
been blocked up.
- Grigory Efimovich?
- You recognized me, didn't you?
I already said that it won't
work out!
A million rubles, all for nothing!
You want a bigger slice of
the cake, is that it?
Do you know it's past four
o'clock now, Mr. Rasputin?
You've got no right to disturb me
at this time!
You have no right to talk to me
in this manner!
Cry old nanny-goat!
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin,
alias Novykh.
Born in 1868
in the village of Pokrovskaya
in the district of Tyumen,
in Tobolsk Guberniya.
No known signs of insanity
in his family.
Nicknamed "Snotnose"
by his boyfriends.
Started drinking at the age of 15.
Mixed-up in brawls and scandals,
involved in illegal assemblies
of a sect called "The Flagellants".
Twice convicted
and sentenced to be whipped.
At the age of 27, suddenly
became an itinerant preacher,
calling himself the "Holy Starets".
Visited many monasteries
in Siberia and Central Russia
and made pilgrimages to
Mount Athos and Jerusalem.
By the turn of the century,
rumors about the Siberian prophet
and faith-healer reached the capital,
and he soon appeared there himself.
He was welcomed into the salons
of the aristocracy,
and it wasn't long before he was
received at the Imperial palace.
Within a short time, Rasputin
acquired tremendous influence.
In the past, numerous prophets,
clairvoyants, hypnotists,
healers, believers in