RASPUTIN
2006 (PASTA, GLUE, PANEL, GLOW IN THE DARK PAINT)
Grigori Rasputin was a Russian psychic faith healer. He heard that Tsarevich Alexei, the son of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, had hemophilia. He was put in touch with the Romanov family after Tsarevich Alexei was severely bruised from falling of a horse and had substantial internal bleeding. Rasputin was able to give the boy relief from his disease, so the Romanov family kept him near to them. Another time Tsarevich Alexei was attacked by a swarm of bees. Rasputin came to his rescue and screamed at the bees “sting him and you will die.” After he yelled this the bees left him alone. Rasputin told the Romanov family that if he were ever killed it would lead to the end of their dynasty. On June 29th 1914, Rasputin was attacked by a former prostitute named Khionia Guseva. She stabbed him in the stomach very seriously, exposing his intestines. Although this seemed like a mortal wound, Rasputin survived. Later, a group of noble men who thought Rasputin had begun to have too much political influence, invited him to one of their houses where they served him cake and wine laced with cyanide. Rasputin had supposedly consumed enough cyanide to kill ten men but it seemed to have no effect on him. After this his assassins shot him in the back with a revolver. They left him to die, but when one of them came back to check on the body, Rasputin came back to life and began strangling the nobleman. His assassin managed to escape to get the other assassins and Rasputin fled. While he was running away he was shot five more times and then heavily clubbed until he was once again unconscious. The noble men then tied him up and stuffed his body under the ice of the Neva River. Three days later his body was found and an autopsy was performed on it. The cause of his death turned out to be drowning and his hands were found untied as if he had been trying to break through the ice to free himself. Shortly after Rasputin’s death the Romanov family lost their power.