Nicholas and Alexandra

On December 16, 1916 Yussupov invited Rasputin to his home in St. Petersburg. Feeding him cyanide-laced wine and cakes, Yussupov thought killing Rasputin would be easy. He was wrong. Rasputin did not eat sweets. Rasputin collapsed from the poison, but did not die.

Later, the alleged details of the murder came out. Yussupov shot Rasputin in the chest, but still he did not die. One of the conspirators shot him twice as Rasputin tried to flee. The shots disabled the monk but, legend has it, he was still alive as conspirators - standing at the top of the bridge at Petrovsky Island - threw his body into the Neva River. His remains were found one week later. Recent revelations from Russian Archives, however, paint a different picture of Rasputin's death. Turns out he apparently wasn't as hard to kill as the story his murderers told at the time.

Rasputin had made an eerie prediction before he died.

If I am killed by common assassins and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia.

...if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for two years. They will be killed by the Russian people...

I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.

Grigory