- TV series about the mad monk Grigoriy Rasputin, who became a hugely influential figure at the court of Tsar Nicholas II.
- After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government created a state commission, the purpose of which, under the guise of investigating the circumstances of the death of Grigoriy Rasputin, was to denigrate his personality, denigrate his political activities, way of life and present to the public his influence on the royal family and its entourage as criminal.—Bazza the Beast
- The story is set in Russia, in the summer of 1917, primarily in St. Petersburg, which was the capital of the Russian empire at that time. This is the period after the abdication of Czar Nicholas II but before the Bolshevik revolution. Russia is governed by a provisional government, headed by Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky summons a detective, Heinrich Svitter, to his office and directs him to investigate the alleged crimes of Rasputin, a drunken and debauched mystic and charlatan from Siberia who had become a favorite of the Czar and his wife, Czarina Alexandra.
Rasputin has been brutally murdered and his dead body discovered floating in the river Neva. Kerensky wants Svitter to provide evidence that Rasputin was in league with Germany in a plot to use Rasputin's influence with the imperial family to end Russia's involvement in World War I and bring down the Russian Empire.
Svitter is a methodical man and he sets out to investigate Rasputin's life. He works diligently and carefully to investigate all of the allegations made against Rasputin. He visits the principal people in Rasputin's life to interview them; from his wife in the Russian village where Rasputin lived to the Russian intelligentsia and aristocracy in St. Petersburg who knew him and associated with him while he was alive.
Being a very pragmatic man and not influenced by superstition or the religious beliefs of the day in Russia, Svitter begins his investigation, skeptical of Rasputin's reputed powers of healing and prophecy. But, as he investigates each allegation and account of Rasputin's life, Svitter gathers evidence which proves that, rather than the drunken, debauched charlatan that Rasputin was popularly believed to have been, he was actually a devout man who had genuine powers of healing and prophecy. Svitter's final report to Kerensky is not well received.
In flashbacks of events as Svitter investigates, members of the Imperial family, as well as the government, feeling both jealous and threatened by Rasputin's influence with the Czar and the Czarina, conspire against him to plot his death. They invite Rasputin to meet with them at the Yusupov palace, the home of Felix Yusupov, where they plan to murder him. Since none of them are experienced assassins, each element of their plot is botched until they finally decide to simply shoot Rasputin. The final coup de grace is delivered by a British secret agent. The conspirators then dump Rasputin's body into the Neva river.
In the end, finished with his investigation, Svitter makes plans to leave Russia. He uses his connections with the government to obtain passports for Anna Vyrubova, Rasputin's sponsor in St. Petersburg and closest confidant, and Rasputin's daughter, Maria. Their departure from Russia allows them to avoid the impending Bolshevik revolution. They agree to meet again, in Finland. Written by bnickimdb
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