A Horse Whisperer Destroyed Russia?
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
A name that is synonymous with evil and witchcraft. A name that rings out as salvation and heroism. It all depending on who you are in imperial Russia. This man who was born a peasant in a small town in Siberia would flimflam his way to one of the most powerful positions of power during the most important time in Russian history. Through part one of this historical review, we will cover what little-known information we have about the beginning of the man that single-handily brought down one of the largest and most powerful empires Europe had ever seen.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born on the 21st of January 1869 in the small Siberian town Pokrovskoye to his father Yefim and his mother Anna. Practically nothing about Rasputin’s parents is available. Some unverifiable sources and written accounts say that Yefim was a farmer and government courier, bringing goods and officials back and forth between neighboring towns. Anna and Yefim had eight children Grigori being the final and only child to survive past infancy. While rumors of a ninth child, a daughter named Feodosiya, do exist, going so far as to say that Grigori and her were close along with him being the godfather of her children. I personally could not find any real sources to confirm this correct or not. Alright now that we got the boring info out of the way, let’s get into the fun and interesting parts of Rasputin’s childhood. Now for whatever reason Rasputin seems to have had a natural talent with horses. From several accounts from townspeople, Rasputin would spend a lot of time with the horses around speaking with them. One story from historian Joseph T. Fuhrmann claims that when Grigori was 12 he was laying in bed with a fever and overheard some men discussing a horse that had gone missing in the town. Rasputin got out of bed and walked over to the men stared at the group for a couple of minutes then without warning pointed to one of them and proclaimed, “you stole the horse!”. His father began to apologize telling the men that Grigori was sick and didn't know what he was talking about and rushed the boy back to bed. The men then left and the others that had not been identified by Grigori followed the man he had pointed at and discovered him attempting to move the stolen horse. No one knows how the young Rasputin knew this, it’s possible he simply got lucky, or in the midst of his fever had some sort of psychic vision of the man stealing the horse. This created an odd paradigm around the town because the boy had been correct. The weird, bed-wetting, horse whispering son of the poorest families in town could see the others stealing. The townsfolk in turn gave the slightest bit of respect now to Grigori and his family. This would be short-lived because as he grew older he developed a taste for vodka that would compete with even that of his fathers. Rasputin a young man at this point, deeply religious, and drunk more often than not had a reputation of riding around on his horse cart screaming obscenities or imparting his true and righteous knowledge of god at the other townsfolk. Now my personal favorite story written in Joseph T Fuhrmanns’ book Rasputin, The Untold Story, mentions an interaction between a man in the town who caught drunk Rasputin stealing his fence, board by board. Chopping pieces of the fence off and throwing them into his cart to probably sell as firewood later. The man confronted him and Rasputin tried to threaten him with the ax he was using to steal the fence, and the man grabbed a stick and severely beat him which caused a permanent bump on his forehead. This is why Rasputin kept his hair messy and unkempt leading to rumors later in his life that he had made a pact with the devil and a horn was growing out of his forehead.
Rasputin would go on a journey to Abalak, Russia in 1886 where he would meet Praskovya, a twenty-year-old peasant girl. They married in February 1887 and moved back to Pokrovskoye, Praskovya would stay here for the entirety of Grigori’s travels and rise to power, remaining wholly devoted to him until her death. The pair would have seven children total with three surviving to adulthood; Dmitri born in 1895, Maria born in 1898, and Varvara born in 1900. Sometime in 1896 possibly 1897 a horse in Pokrovskoye went missing, Rasputin and some of his friends were the most probable suspects. His friends would be convicted of the horse theft and exiled from the village, but the evidence of Rasputin being connected at all wasn’t clear. Temporary exile was discussed as a solution, but Rasputin instead offered the town council, that he would embark on a journey to the Monastery of St. Nicholas, three-hundred and twenty-five miles away. Now, the reason he actually left is unknown, some sources claim he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary or another saint, and this vision is what led him to take this journey, I like the horse theft punishment escape version as it fits Rasputin’s personality more. In 1897 Rasputin would leave on this pilgrimage that would change his life and the world forever.
