On a cold December night in 1916, a group of men hurried through the streets of St. Petersburg,

carrying a heavy load wrapped in an expensive rug. They eventually came to a narrow bridge that

straddled the little Neva river. Although most of the river was frozen over, this one spot had a

large break in the ice. Anything thrown into the Neva could be expected to be washed out into the

sea of Finland in a matter of days. And so the men dumped their cargo over the edge of the bridge

and prayed that they would never have to see it again. But unfortunately, they would not get their wish.

The next day, the authorities spotted something floating in the Neva. Using grappling hooks,

they were able to latch onto the mysterious object and haul it out of the river. What they had

discovered was the frozen corpse of the most notorious man in Russia, the Siberian mystic and

known imperial favorite, Gregory Rasputin. Almost immediately, the rumors began to swirl about his death,

who'd done the deed, which of his many enemies had finally finished him off. Was it true that he

had survived a gunshot wound to the head? Was it true that he'd freed himself of his restraints

underwater and made the sign of the cross before freezing to death? Was it true that his sadistic

killers actually cut off his genitals as a grotesque trophy? All that could be said for certain

was that the man who had come to represent everything people despised about the teetering

Zara's regime was dead. But the legend of Rasputin was only just being born. A poet once described

his friend as, quote, too weird to live and too rare to die. And to me, that's the perfect

summation of Gregory Rasputin. When it comes to Rasputin, it can be hard to decide what was

stranger, his life or his death. Both are so clouded by rumor and legend that getting anywhere

near the truth can seem like a lost cause. Who was this strange holy man from Siberia? How did he ever

manage to worm his way into the confidences of the Zara of Russia? Did he really possess mystical

healing powers? Was Rara Rasputin really Russia's greatest love machine? All that more on today's

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