Nadia smiled, and Bruno knew their pathways had converged for a reason. “Rasputin was one of
the most intriguing and, in my opinion, misunderstood men in the history of Russia. Father Grigory
was the center of what we would now call a cult—he created a circle of largely upper-class female
devotees, who gave him money, sex, social standing, and political power in exchange for his spiritual
guidance. Rasputin came to St. Petersburg in 1903 and by 1905 had total access to the Empress
Alexandra and, through her, to Nikolai and the children. Rumors have it that he seduced the tsarina,
that he played sexual games with the grand duchesses, that he spent lavish amounts of state money for
his own pleasure, and that he was actually ruling Russia during the crucial period of World War I,
when the tsar left to command the military. All of these accusations were false, except for his
influence on governmental policy. Alexandra believed Rasputin to have been sent by God. As such,
she allowed him to choose state ministers from his friends. He duly filled the government with
incompetents and sycophants, ensuring the Romanovs’ downfall. For the Russian people, Rasputin’s
access to power was a mystery. They called him a magician, a hypnotist, a demon. He may have been
all three, but the true reason for his power had little to do with magic or hypnotism. What the gossips
of Moscow and Petersburg didn’t know about Father Grigory was that he was the only man who
could keep the heir, Alexei, from dying of hemophilia.”
“The Romanovs found Rasputin to be an effective doctor?” Bruno asked.
“He wasn’t a doctor by training,” Nadia said. “There has been much speculation about what,
exactly, he did specialize in. His power over Alexei certainly had much to do with a kind of medical
treatment. Hemophilia was a deadly disorder at the beginning of the twentieth century. The disorder
affected the blood vessels, which, when ruptured, could not heal, and thus the smallest bruise could
lead to a hemophiliac’s death. Alexandra was a genetic carrier of the ‘bleeding disease,’ as it was
called, inheriting it from her grandmother Queen Victoria. Women were carriers, but it only became
manifest in men. Victoria’s sons and grandsons withered and died like cut flowers because of their
inheritance. The tsarina felt horrible guilt over transmitting the disease to her son. She knew it to be a
deadly disorder, requiring real medical care, and yet she trusted Rasputin, who was never trained as
a doctor, to heal her son.”
“Why?” Bruno asked.
“That is at the heart of this album,” Nadia said. “He had methods that went beyond the perimeters
of medicine. Of course, much of his power also stemmed from the force of his personality,” Nadia
conceded. “He was a mystic, a holy man, a cunning and manipulative social climber, but there was—
at the center of it all—an incredible mastery of human nature. Nothing he did was by chance. Later,
once he had made the friendship of the tsarina, and had learned that his power over her would be
absolute if he could heal her son, things changed. He needed an effective medicine for hemophilia,
and he desperately tried to find one. I believe he saved Alexei with his formulas.”
Bruno glanced at the album. Nadia had opened it to a page filled with numbers.
“I have access to all of the records of the imperial treasures,” Vera said. “And I’ve never seen
anything about this album.”
“It isn’t exactly common knowledge,” Naida said. “After the 1917 revolution, a committee was
formed to make an official inquiry into Rasputin’s life, his influence on the tsar, and his murder. They
interviewed people who knew him and collected firsthand accounts from his followers, patrons,
friends, and enemies. A file was created about Rasputin. This file went missing during the Communist
era—most people believed that it was burned with so many other tsarist-era documents.”
“I have colleagues who believe the burning of the imperial papers a crime against humanity, as
egregious as Stalin’s purges,” Vera said.
Bruno shot Vera a look, wondering if she too believed the historical record more important than
living, breathing human beings. It was this kind of thing that made Bruno feel allergic to academics.
“Perhaps your colleagues would be assuaged to learn, then, that the Rasputin file was spared,”
Nadia said, her voice terse. She was clearly unhappy at the idea of papers being more valuable than
human lives. “I was working in the Soviet archives in the eighties when I discovered it, buried in a
room full of moldering surveillance records. It was not long after Angela Valko’s death. Vladimir had