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relating to the last of the tsars: Nicholas and the royal family.
And not just the end of the Russian Romanov dynasty, but a unique tribute to
the man who directly and indirectly brought doom down upon them: Grigori
Yefimovich Rasputin.
The Mad Monk.
As I stared into the room beyond, it took a moment for me to realize what the
fortune-teller meant by her last comment. Then I saw it: one of the track
lights was focused like a baby spot on a glass cylinder that sat upon an
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elevated dais. The liquid within seemed to glow with a blue-white radiance of
its own accord. The placard beside it proclaimed the contents within to be
Rasputin's . . . er . . . genitalia.
Yikes!
Andyuck for the second time within the past hour.
* * *
Albert Einstein's body was cremated after his death in 1955. His brain,
however, was preserved in a jar for many years thereafter. Today its remnants
reside in a number of jars: the consequence(s) of medical research. Just one
of many precedences, I suppose . . .
But pickled privates?
It's true that in another age the organs of certain famous men were kept
as well trophies. Scientific curiosities. After they had passed on and had no
earthly use for them.
Napoleon's "package" was a famous example. And just as Albert
Einstein'smental prowess was legendary, so, too, was the would-be emperor when
it came to conquests between the sheets. If he'd been half the genius in the
field that he was in the bedroom, Bonaparte would have conquered most of the
Eastern Hemisphere.
Rasputin's sexual appetites were even more prodigious according to legend.
Small wonder that the Russians who mummified Stalin and Lenin, keeping the
latter on display even today in the Red Square would hang on to a piece of the
guy who may have done more for the rise of socialism than Stalin, Lenin, and
Trotsky all put together.
As we walked closer, we could see the placard attributed the temporary
donation of "Rasputin Junior" to Igor Knyazkin, Chief of the Prostate Research
Center at the Russian Academy of Natural Science in St. Petersburg.
Nudge, nudge; wink, wink . . .
According to the placard, the organ in question measured a full thirty
centimeters in length which might go a long way toward explaining this
unwashed barbarian's popularity with the ladies of the Russian aristocracy. I
mean, being a so-called holy man will only get you so far when you have the
table manners of a pig and the body odor to match.
So, given the prodigious dimensions promised by the legend next to the
display, it was impossible tonot look. We all looked. Stared into the depths
of the preservative medium that filled the small "aquarium" on the pedestal.
"I have to say," Irena said after a long, thoughtful pause,
"eleven-point-eight inches isn't what it used to be."
Other than the slightly milky liquid, the tank was empty.
Mama Samm didn't say anything but I could tell that she was upset. I doubted
it was from disappointment at missing out on hundred-year-old pickled
privates.
"Maybe they took it out for um cleaning," Irena offered. Then shrugged,
straightened up, and prepared to continue the search for a missing icon.
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"Shetook it," Mama Samm said finally. "Thisis what she came for. This is what
she meant by the Russiankey ."
do with with something like that?> If this was a "key" I didn't even want to
think about what kind of a lock it was supposed to open.
>I do not know, yet. I must think. Be still for a while . . .
While Irena was wandering around in the next gallery, we lingered and studied
the abbreviated history of the Mad Monk of St. Petersburg, looking for clues
and all the while wondering: what became of the monk, the monk, the monk, the
monk. . . .
Chapter Nine
The phrase "mad monk" is both alliterative and colorful but not wholly
accurate as Rasputin was never a priest or a monk but astaretz  a religious
pilgrim. In fact, he had little formal education or training in the Russian
Orthodox faith. He was, instead, a self-styled faith healer and so-called
psychic. If the czar and czarina had ordered a background check on their
"spiritual advisor," his formative years surely would have given them pause.
As a young man growing up in a peasant village in Siberia, ole Greg was well
known as a trouble-maker. He had a taste for liquor, thievery, and women and
not necessarily in that order. Rumors of debauched and endless sexual
appetites began early. He was barely into puberty when he had already
developed the reputation of a rake.
At the same time, this Siberian seducer was quite the "holy" roller when he
wasn't off for a roll in the hay or a roll between the sheets. Some sources
had him preaching the "word of God" since the age of eleven. Presumably he
followed the dualistic path of most religious hypocrites: pious by day,
priapic by night. Then, at the age of eighteen, he had a unique and most
profound conversion experience.
It happened over the course of a few weeks while he was staying at the
Verkhoturye Monastery. There he discovered the renegade Khlysty sect. The
Khlysty philosophy taught that the only way to reach God was through sinful
actions. Of course it wasn't that simple. Once the sin was committed and
confessed, the penitent could achieve forgiveness. In other words, the central
concept of the Khlysty was to "sin in order to drive out sin."
Sort of transcendence-through-the-12-step-process approach.
Rasputin had found a religious philosophy that embraced his hedonism and
allowed him to exploit it in the name of God. Shortly thereafter he adopted
the robes of a monk, developed his own self-gratifying doctrines, traveled the
country as astaretz and elevated sinning to a new level of sacred
self-indulgence.
By the time he'd reached his early thirties, Brother Lust's Traveling
Salvation Show had journeyed all the way to the Holy Land and back, picking up
a load of converts, including a surprising number of clergy from his homeland.
And by the time he made a "pilgrimage" to St. Petersburg in 1902, many of the
country's religious leaders were beginning to take notice.
The turn of the century saw a number of holy men, conjurers, psychics,
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healers, diviners, and unusual characters milling about the capital city,
sniffing for opportunities as the royal family was in a state of turmoil.
After the unexpected death of Tsar Alexander III, the young and totally
unprepared Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich had ascended to the throne and the
situation was ripe for exploitation.
The young heir had already ticked off most of his family's royal connections
in Europe on his way to courting and eventually marrying the princess who came
to be known as Alexandra Feodorovna. Then he proceeded to burn his bridges
with his own countrymen by holing up in the palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Seclusion
is great for a couple of nobodies, madly in love with each other. Not so much
for heads of state overseeing the largest land mass with its populous range of
ethnicities and microcultures. Rasputin had a heavy hand in their unpopularity
toward the end but the seeds of their destruction were sown early on.
The young Tsarina's primary duty was to produce the next male heir so it
didn't help her popularity when she produced only daughters for four
successive births. The palace doors were opened, at this point to a veritable
parade of mystics and self-styled holy men. When all of that intense prayer
and mystic ritualism coincided with a fifth pregnancy resulting in a boy, the
stage was set for the appearance and disproportionate influence of someone
like the wilystaretz .
Rasputin's "in" with the royal court turned out to be a little gift from [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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