Our last stop was the Yusopov Palace where the fifth richest family in Russia lived. They were best friends to the Royal Family. The last representative of the family married the niece of Nicholas II.The Yusupov Palace recently raised their prices, or so our tour guide Nadya said. Rather than having the tour companies have to ask the patrons for extra money, they charge a fee to take pictures. It was late in the trip and I was actually tired of taking pictures. Besides the fee (about two euros) had to be paid by credit card. The other family said their credit company said if they used their credit card in St. Petersburg it would be denied. Of course they passed this information onto us after we charged something at Hard Rock Cafe and the souvenir shop the day before. I wasn't in the mood to risk it for two euros, and I wasn't in the mood to take more pictures.
I took notes instead. I found someone's Pinterest account with pictures if you are really curious. Scroll down for the creepy wax images.
The palace was a gift from one of the lovers of Catherine II (the one who gave her the peacock clock now in The Hermitage). She gave the palace to the niece of the lover's brother (it gets more complicated from here). The niece sells the palace to a nephew who was related to the Yusupov family in the early 19th century. Three generations lived in the palace. This was his favorite palace. His other one was in Moscow (400 miles away). His wife and children lived in St. Petersburg.
In the early 20th century the palace was enlarged. It is here where Rasputin was killed. Rasputin was a priest / local doctor who had the ear of the Romanov family At the time there was a huge power struggle. Catherine II had 10 grandchildren, who also had a lot of children. At this point there were several thousand royal family members. Through intermarriage, some of them had hemophilia and needed a doctor who could keep this a secret from the general public.
Nicholas II was on a train when the train collapsed and he nearly bled to death. A local shaman was found who was rumored to be able to heal anything (Rasputin). He was welcomed into the family by Czarina Alexandria.
Alexandria had loved Nicholas as teenager. She was a German princess. In World War I they thought she was a spy. During the war she opened the Winter Palace as a hospital.
Rasputin took the blame for the problems of the day. He was not Alexandria's lover. All he was trying to do was keep Russia out of the war. Nicholas did not realize how bad things were for the ordinary Russians because they always put on a happy face around the czar, but Rasputin heard the complaints in the bar.
The royal family was related to the English royal family, therefore Nicholas wanted to support the war to help his family.
As promised, things got complicated.
Felix Yusupov married Irena. Rasputin came to the Yusupov Palace to meet Irena. The Yusupov Palace has rooms more similar to how houses are designed in modern-day suburbia (separate rooms with hallways connecting them) than 17th -19th century palaces with giant rooms that flow into the next ones.
The museum has creepy looking wax museums. I would have taken a picture of them, but I refused the photography fee. Ashley declared them too creepy to photograph.
There are four wax statues representing four people who tried to kill him: an army doctor (poisoned his food), member or the Russian Parliament (shot him), a friend, and someone dressed up like Rasputin to pretend to be him while he was taken away by someone else.
In the basement dining room where he was killed he was told to wait for Irena, who who was having a reception upstairs. She never knew he was there. He was to wait until her guests left. Meanwhile he was offered poisoned food.
Irena was not home.
Felix saw him. Nothing looked wrong so he shot him. Felix told Rasputin to cross himself and he fell down, but Felix did not shoot him.
Meanwhile the fake Rasputin drove away.
Three different people tried to kill him that night.
Rasputin climbed upstairs to escape through that door (the one Nadya pointed out, but I could not photograph).
They kept trying to kill him.
It was a dangerous time in St. Petersburg.
On December 16, 1916 they wrapped his body in fabric and drove him to the bridge. They made a hole in the river (in the winter the river freezes over) and dropped him in it. However, they forgot to include his shoe, and they used the wrong type of fabric. Criminals always make little mistakes that haunt them later, or so the murder mysteries I read would have you believe.
They drove away hoping the current would take Rasputin far, far away. In the morning they found his shoe. They also found the fabric they wrapped him in stuck to the ice, therefore he did not float away.
There was a mark in his forehead.
Turns out a professional killer, a spy from England, was trying to kill him the same day. It just wasn't his day.
The autopsy shows he died from being thrown in the river. Not the poison. Not the gunshots. But hypothermia and drowning.
After this was the February and October Revolutions (of 1917) and in the summer 1918 the Romanov family (including dear Anastasia) was killed.
Rasputin had predicted his death would be the end of the royal family, and he was right. History has shown he was not as bad as they believed he was a century ago. Instead he was a victim.
It was in this palace where Don hit his limit of Russian history. It was this palace that Ashley really wanted to see because Anastasia lived here with her mother and siblings.
The tour finished with seeing the room where they held concerts for between 200 and 2,000 guests. I don't even have that many FaceBook friends, let alone people I would want to entertain. This was in the days before electricity. Every two hours the room had to be cleared so the staff could relight the candles. In the end of the 19th century, the lighting was replaced by electricity. It took a while for electricity to catch on, just as it did in the United States.
Felix was kicked out of Russia for trying to kill Rasputin, which in the end ironically saved his life because he was then unable to serve in World War I. Felix had a younger son who ended up becoming ruler after the older one (Nicholas) was killed in a duel.
We also saw a smaller room that seats 118 people where small concerts are still held. We heard one happening during our tour. The stage is as deep as that room. The balcony is wear the Royal Family sat. The famous ballerina Anna Pavlova is said to have performed on this stage. Nicholas II is rumored to have a special ballerina friend before he was king and that sort of thing was still allowed.
This is what a Pillsbury Press post looks like when I am not allowed to take pictures. I promise more photos for the rest of our trip.
We returned to the boat in plenty of time before we set sail.
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