The little Czarevich Alexis, son of the czar, was a source of joy for all those who came in contact with him.  The adorable baby had blue eyes and golden curls.  Cheerful and full of life he appeared to be the picture of health.  As the future czar he was accorded the meticulous care and attention of doctors and nurses that no ordinary infant could possibly have had.

However, when he was six weeks old bleeding occurred from his navel.  As he began to crawl and toddle about, ominous signs of excessive bruising emerged on his arms and legs.  Once when he was three and a half he bumped his face and a huge swelling the size of a grapefruit closed both of his eyes.  It took weeks for the swelling to subside.  Gradually the terrible realization crept over Nicholas and Alexandra that their beloved child was afflicted with hemophilia.

Any mother would be devastated to learn that her child had a chronic, life-threatening disease.  It was doubly desolating for Alexandra since she knew she alone was responsible.  Although none of the particulars of the disease were known then, she knew the hereditary aspects ran in her family back to Queen Victoria.  After all she did have a hemophiliac brother.  But royalty and reality are not necessarily compatible.  To their way of thinking, more often than not, it was God’s will that decreed affliction regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

As empress, Alexandra had longed to provide Nicholas with a male Heir to the Czar’s Throne and perpetuate the Romanov Dynasty.   Peter the Great had passed the line through his daughters.  But over a hundred years previously Czar Paul hated his mother, Catherine the Great, so much that he had decreed the law of succession could only be through the male heirs.

Few people outside the intimate circle surrounding the royal family ever knew the exact nature of Alexis’ illness.  It was kept a deep dark secret.  Whenever Alexis was well, he appeared as healthy as any other child.  On those occasions when bleeding episodes occurred, piercing screams of pain echoed throughout the palaces followed by piteous pleas to Mama to help the poor little czarevich.

Morphine was the only possible analgesic and it was withheld because of its addictive properties.  His only relief from the pain was to lapse into unconsciousness from exhaustion.  Recovery often took weeks to months in bed.  Alexandra never left his side.  The anguish she must have felt as she sat helpless beside her little boy is beyond comprehension.

It took its toll on Alexandra’s health too. She developed sciatica, causing pain in her back and legs as well as what was probably a weakened heart.  She spent a great deal of her time in subsequent years in a wheel chair.

Following consultation after consultation with specialists after specialist who could do nothing, Alexandra realized she was alone in her fight to save her child.  Her anxiety resulted in overprotection.  She had two sailors to watch over every move Alexis made to prevent the least little accident that could bring on the bleeding.  No small job with an energetic, mischievous little boy!

From time to time, even with all their precautions, another insidious episode would reappear.  Alexandra took refuge in the church.  She was determined in her faith in the power of healing through prayer.  Hour after hour was spent in the palace chapel praying for a miracle.  Occasionally when a fairly long interval had passed without incident, Alexandra became convinced that her prayers had been answered only to unexpectedly have her hope dashed.

In 1912 Alexis was eight and the family was on holiday at a hunting lodge in Poland when the worst crisis happened.  After a rowing excursion on a lake, Alexis jumped into the boat.  The boat lurched and he fell onto the oarlock that gouged his upper thigh and groin.  He had bruising but seemed to improve after a few days in bed.  The family moved on to Spala, another hunting lodge in Poland.  Apparently a jostling carriage ride dislodged what fragile little clot had formed and the bleeding began again in earnest, distending his leg, groin and abdomen.

For eleven days the poor little fellow was in agony and hovered between life and death. His left leg was drawn up to his chest in a futile effort to lessen the pain.  Everyone was convinced that he was dying, including Alexis.  He asked his Mama and Papa if he would have pain in heaven.  The last rites were administered and word went out throughout the nation to pray for the little czarevich.  Still, the nature of his illness was not revealed.  Naturally, wild rumors spread throughout Russia as to why the boy was so ill.

At the height of the crisis when all hope seemed to be abandoned around her, Alexandra sent a telegram to a nomadic Holy Man, Gregory Rasputin, begging for his prayers of help.  He wired back that he was on the way and the boy would not die.

Whatever the reason, strange coincidence, miracle or perhaps the disease had run its course that time, immediately after receiving the telegram, Alexis began to improve.  It was a long, tortuous recovery.  His leg, having been drawn up for so long to lessen the pain, resisted straightening out.  It was over a year before he could walk again.  But he survived!  Alexandra was overjoyed and utterly convinced that the intercession of Rasputin’s prayers had turned the tide.

Rasputin had made a reputation for himself in St. Petersburg earlier and had been received by the royal family.  He was born Gregory Elfimovich in Pokrovakoe, a cold and desolate village in Western Siberia.  When he was a young man, he earned a reputation as a wild scoundrel.  He drank, caroused and seduced every girl he laid eyes on.  The Russian word for dissolute is “rasputin”.  He good-naturedly adopted that name.  At one time he traveled to a Russian monastery that was apparently a haven for a sect called “Khlysty”.  Those adherents believed in redemption after sin, especially sexual transgressions.  First the sins, then forgiveness.  Thus the more sin, the greater the holiness.

Rasputin was married to the same woman for years and had three daughters.  He had engaged in farming but domesticity had no effect on his habits.  After claiming to have had a vision, he took off, walking two thousand miles to a monastery in Greece.  He spent two years there and returned as a starets, a wandering mystagogue.  The local priest in Pokrovakoe suspected blasphemy so at age thirty-three Rasputin, left to seek his fortunes in St. Petersburg.

Physically, Rasputin lived up to his name.  He had long, dirty, matted hair and beard. He rarely bathed.  He always wore the same clothes, a filthy peasant blouse and pants and rough boots.  His stench preceded him wherever he went.  However, his eyes were his most startling attribute.  Depending on who described him, they were piercing blue or steely gray.  His hypnotic gaze gave him a charismatic aura that he exploited to his maximum advantage.

Taken in the context of the times, Rasputin was not an unusual phenomenon.  There were many starets roaming throughout Russia.  For the most part, they were saintly old ascetics who had given up all worldly goods and lived off the charity of the peasants in exchange for preaching, blessings and occasionally maintaining powers of healing.

Also the bored leisure class of St. Petersburg was fascinated with the occult.  Fortune-tellers and mediums with their seances were entertaining diversions in the salons of the capital.  Rasputin was clever enough to present his “credentials” to the leaders of the Orthodox Church in the city, which insured his entree into Society.  He became a welcomed novelty.

A Montenegrin princess brought Rasputin to the attention of Nicholas and Alexandra.  He became a frequent visitor to the palace.  He was a gifted raconteur, holding the children spellbound with tales of Siberia.  Soon he had the confidence of Alexandra especially.

Cut off from the population as they were, even Nicholas found him to be a source of what the czar thought was valued counsel regarding the ordinary people.  In this respect, both Nicholas and Rasputin were correct.  Who better to describe peasant life than one who had lived it?  He always showed a very different face to the royal family than he did outside the palace.

With the patronage of the Church and Society, Rasputin’s lifestyle improved significantly.  He exchanged his peasant attire for silk Russian tunics, velvet trousers and elegant leather boots. He wore a heavy gold cross and chain around his neck, a gift from Alexandra.  His personal hygiene did not improve however.

Rasputin acquired a modest apartment where he received a steady stream of supplicants. Day and night, a line of people seeking his counsel formed on the stairs and outside his apartment.  His growing influence with the Imperial Family prompted him to give out notes for petitioners to take to important officials.  In return he accepted gifts, money and, of course, sexual favors.

He continued his sexual conquests openly among the women of St. Petersburg, occasionally with the sanction of their husbands!  Highborn ladies as well as peasants and a cross-section of the female population enthusiastically embraced his message of redemption and salvation through sexual sin.  Rasputin was never discriminating about whom he cheerfully bedded.

His aggressive amorous approaches often sent outraged women to the police with charges of rape.  As a result, around the clock detective surveillance was set up.  The police kept detailed notes of Rasputin’s visitors and whenever possible interviewed them.  His all night drinking and carousing became legendary.  Many a report of his activities was sent to Nicholas.  Alexandra, especially, dismissed them as vicious gossip.  Rasputin’s detractors became her enemies.

As his notorious reputation grew, the Church was the first to denounce him as a lascivious fraud.  Since he had the ear of the empress, he pleaded innocent and soon those critics were transferred to distant locations.  The more he was publicly condemned, the more emphatically the royal family defended him.  In time his influence extended even to the removal of the most able government ministers.

It is hard to understand how the well educated and sophisticated Nicholas and Alexandra could have been so gullible!  The answer?  They fervently believed their son’s health and very life was in the hands of the “Holy Man’s” prayers.  For them the life of Russia itself was embodied in the survival of the Romanov Dynasty through the young czarevich.  Whereas medical science had failed and all of the power at the disposal of the czar could not save Alexis, Rasputin continually succeeded.

After the events that compelled the Imperial Manifesto and the establishment of the Duma, Russia became a somewhat more open society.  The Duma and the now free press began to attack Rasputin as being a scandalous force in the palace.  Vicious rumors spread through the streets describing orgies with Alexandra and even the royal daughters!

The populace still did not know anything about Alexis’ illness.  Alexandra became even more adamant in her defense of Rasputin.  Nicholas did what he could to quash the gossip, to no avail.

By 1915 Rasputin had become the power behind the throne and thus a political figure to be reckoned with.  There was an assassination attempt on Rasputin’s life motivated by a religious fanatic.  The “Holy Man” was stabbed in the stomach and hovered between life and death for two weeks but did recover.

1912 saw Russia enjoying a period of prosperity.  The war with Japan was fading from memory.  The famed ballet dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, was the rage of St. Petersburg. Russian music reached great heights with Rachmaninov, Zimbalist, Heifetz and the incomparable opera basso, Fedor Chaliapin.  The Tercentenary of the Romanov Dynasty was enthusiastically celebrated all over Russia.  The royal daughters were growing up and presented to Society in a glittering ball given by Dowager Empress Marie.

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