Grigory Rasputin is the Siberian peasant from the Tobolsk province, appeared in St. Petersburg in 1905 and it was close to an imperial surname. The standard version of this improbable take-off says that Rasputin had the ekstrasensorny tselitelsky abilities helping to facilitate a condition of Crown Prince Alexey sick with hemophilia.
Plot and murder
The plot against Rasputin for the purpose of his physical elimination and rescue of prestige of a dynasty of Romanov arose at the end of 1916. The grand duke Dmitry Pavlovich, the deputy of the Duma V.M. Purishkevich, the prince Felix Yusupov, doctor Lazovert and the agent of the British intelligence O. Rainer were among conspirators famous today.
Murder happened in the Yusupov Palace basement on Moika Embankment in the night from 16 for December 17, 1916. The aged man is decided to be poisoned with potassium cyanide which was are placed in its favourite cakes and Madeira.
Circumstances of this business most of all are known today for F. Yusupov's memoirs. In spite of the fact that potassium cyanide is a strongest and high-speed inorganic poison, Rasputin after his reception survived and only complained of small discomfort in a stomach. It induced conspirators to use of firearms. The body then was dumped to Neva.
Why poison did not work?
Any proved version of the incident does not exist today. There are only hypotheses which with bigger or smaller plausibility explain this phenomenon. It is established that potassium cyanide slows down the action in case the stomach of the person who accepted it is filled with food. Really, the description F. Yusupov of Rasputin's condition after he ate several cakes and drank wines demonstrates that the aged man closed eyes, inclined the head on a table. When Yusupov who left to other conspirators to tell that the objective is achieved, returned, he saw Rasputin, lying it seemed unconscious blindly on a floor. It seemed to the prince that the aged man is dead, but that suddenly recovered and tried to run. However its movements were unsteady, he clambered on a narrow ladder to a door on the street where subsequently it was shot. Postmortem examination of the body of Rasputin did not show availability of cyanide at it in a stomach. What hypotheses in this regard can be: - low-quality poison; - the decrease in the poisoning properties of poison which came from interaction with sugar; - instead of poison, non-toxic powder (according to unchecked data doctor Lazorvet filling food with poison admitted later that he could not break a Hippocratic Oath) was put. Most likely, the solution of this case will never be received. Participants of events already died, their written certificates contradict each other, and Rasputin's remains were cremated after the February revolution that will not allow to carry out their toxicological expertize.