Rasputin was born to a family of peasants in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, located within Tyumensky Uyezd in Tobolsk Governorate (present-day Yarkovsky District in Tyumen Oblast).

He had a religious conversion experience after embarking on a pilgrimage to a monastery in 1897 and has been described as a monk or as a strannik (wanderer or pilgrim), though he held no official position in the Russian Orthodox Church.

The extent of Rasputin's power reached an all-time high in 1915, when Nicholas left Saint Petersburg to oversee the Imperial Russian Army as it was engaged in the First World War.

Historians often suggest that Rasputin's scandalous and sinister reputation helped discredit the Tsarist government, thus precipitating the overthrow of the House of Romanov shortly after his assassination.

[1] Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River in the Tobolsk Governorate (now Tyumen Oblast) in the Russian Empire.

[6] Historians agree, however, that like most Siberian peasants, including his mother and father, Rasputin was not formally educated and remained illiterate well into his early adulthood.

[17] By the early 1900s, Rasputin had developed a small circle of followers, primarily family members and other local peasants, who prayed with him on Sundays and other holy days when he was in Pokrovskoye.

[18] At some point during 1904 or 1905, he traveled to the city of Kazan, where he acquired a reputation as a wise starets who could help people resolve their spiritual crises and anxieties.

[23][24][25] Upon arriving at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Rasputin was introduced to church leaders, including Archimandrite Theofan, inspector of the theological seminary, who was well-connected in Saint Petersburg society and later served as confessor to the imperial family.

[29] Rasputin's ideas and "strange manners" made him the subject of intense curiosity among the city's elite, who according to Fuhrmann were "bored, cynical, and seeking new experiences" during this period.

[26] Rasputin's appeal may have been enhanced by the fact that he was also a native Russian, unlike other self-described "holy men" such as Nizier Anthelme Philippe and Gérard Encausse, who had previously been popular in Saint Petersburg.

The tsar recorded the event in his diary, writing that he and his empress consort, Alexandra Feodorovna, had "made the acquaintance of a man of God – Grigory, from Tobolsk province".

[34] At some point, Nicholas and Alexandra became convinced that Rasputin possessed the miraculous power to heal their only son, Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, who suffered from haemophilia.

[36] Much of Rasputin's influence with the imperial family stemmed from the belief by Alexandra and others that he had on several occasions eased Alexei's pain and stopped his bleeding.

[40][41] During the summer of 1912, Alexei developed a hemorrhage in his thigh and groin after a jolting carriage ride near the imperial hunting grounds at Spała, which caused a large hematoma.

[Tyutcheva] can speak ... about our friend something bad," Maria's twelve-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to her mother on 8 March 1910, after begging Alexandra to forgive her for doing something she did not like.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard."

A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news.

Rasputin soon became a controversial figure; he was accused by his enemies of religious heresy and rape, was suspected of exerting undue political influence over the tsar and was even rumored to be having an affair with the tsarina.

In 1907, the local clergy in Pokrovskoye denounced Rasputin as a heretic, and the Bishop of Tobolsk launched an inquest into his activities, accusing him of "spreading false, Khlyst-like doctrines".

[66] In Saint Petersburg, Rasputin faced opposition from even more prominent critics, including Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin and the Okhrana, the tsar's secret police.

[68] Outside of the royal court, Rasputin preached that physical contact between him and others purified them; he engaged in drunken revels and extramarital affairs with a wide range of women from prostitutes to high-society ladies.

[71] Rumors multiplied that Rasputin had assaulted female followers and behaved inappropriately on visits with the imperial family—and particularly with Nicholas's teenage daughters Olga and Tatiana.

[79][80] A radical conservative and anti-semite, Iliodor had been part of a group of establishment figures who had attempted to drive a wedge between Rasputin and the imperial family in 1911.

[79] A group of nobles led by Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Prince Felix Yusupov decided that Rasputin's influence over Alexandra threatened the Russian Empire.

Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia, wrote that Tatiana had supposedly witnessed Rasputin's castration, but he doubted the credibility of the rumor.

[91] In a modern analysis of Rasputin's death, published on the 100th anniversary of the event, Dr Carolyn Harris of the University of Toronto notes that the actual circumstances were apparently less dramatic than Yusupov's account.

According to Smith, Purishkevich spoke openly about the murder to two soldiers and to a policeman who was investigating reports of shots shortly after the event, but urged them not to tell anyone else.

[94] The Stock Exchange Gazette ran a report of Rasputin's death "after a party in one of the most aristocratic homes in the center of the city" on the afternoon of 30 December [O.S.

[62] However, his body was exhumed and burned by a detachment of soldiers on the orders of Alexander Kerensky shortly after Nicholas abdicated the throne in March 1917,[101] so that his grave would not become a rallying point for supporters of the old regime.