Now, there’s a disturbing thought!

For those who don’t share my fascination with Russian history (which would probably be most of you), let me tell you a little bit about the late Grigoriy Yefimovich Rasputin. Born in 1869, he was a Russian mystic and holy man who managed to ooze his way into the good graces of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his emotionally vulnerable wife, the Empress Aleksandra. Interestingly, his name actually translates to “dissolute” — and was he ever! Despite his complete lack of redeeming features, he came to exercise such a disturbingly negative influence on the royal family that a group of Russian noblemen, who rightly considered him to be a charlatan and a grave threat to the Romanovs, finally assassinated him in 1916. His story is a complex and fascinating one, up to and including the manner of his death: some accounts allege that it took three tries in rapid succession — poison, gunshots, and finally drowning in the Neva River — for his assailants to actually succeed. He simply kept refusing to die.

In 1988 — 72 years after his demise — I saw him on the grounds of the Kremlin in Moscow.

That got your attention, didn’t it? But it’s not a joke, and I was not hallucinating. There was a man standing outside the entrance to the Kremlin Armory, with long, greasy black hair, a long, unkempt black beard, and wearing the sort of long, shapeless, filthy coat that the real Rasputin would have worn. It was positively eerie.

It happened on my first trip to the Soviet Union. A friend from my Russian language class and I were traveling with a U.S. tour group, and we were soaking up as much Russian history and culture as we could during our two short weeks there. So when I saw “Rasputin,” I turned to my friend and urged her to look in his direction; but he had already begun to walk away. Had I been seeing things? Or was he perhaps an actor hired to entertain the tourists? Or maybe just a man with a serious mental problem, or a perverse sense of humor. I’ll never know; but I still see him in my mind’s eye, and over the years I have read much about the real Rasputin. He was, quite simply, an abomination.

*. *. *

And today we have a man in the Kremlin who bears 5/8 of Rasputin’s name: the “Putin” part. They don’t look anything alike; they’re from different backgrounds; and at least Vladimir Putin looks like he showers regularly. I suppose I could stretch credulity a bit and try to draw some connection between their Russian names, but . . . no, it doesn’t really work. So why have I even brought up the subject? Have I just finally gotten desperate for topics to write about?

Or maybe — just maybe — what keeps tapping away at my brain is that these two very different men, from two different eras, and with nothing more to connect them than five letters of a name, do share one very obvious trait: narcissism. And narcissism without conscience, without a grain of sympathy or empathy in either of their minds, hearts, or little fingers. We’re talking about two inhumane human beings who have never had anything but disdain for — and a secret fear of — their fellow man. And one of them is still very much alive — and worse, at the helm of one of the biggest and most powerful countries in the world.

Rasputin was a debaucher, a seducer of women, a drunkard, a fake healer who somehow managed to calm the royal heir, Alexei, when the boy was in excruciating pain from attacks of the hemophilia with which he had been born. And the boy’s mother was grateful, and came to depend upon the healer for her son’s well-being.

Putin, on the other hand, is more “moral” — he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t debauch . . . at least as far as we know. He gets his satisfaction from having people killed or imprisoned when they become problematic. Much cleaner that way.

So whose sins are more despicable? The man who chose to live his life in a mad frenzy of drunkenness and sexual excess; who nevertheless was somehow able to ease a little boy’s pain; and who, in giving his ill-conceived political advice to a Tsar and his wife, also helped bring down a regime that was harsh and cruel to its citizens? . . . Or the one who now has turned back the clock by recreating an ever-more-repressive regime; enriched himself and his sycophants at the expense of the entire populace of his country; and who deals with his detractors by means of an unhesitating and unrepentant “off with their heads”? You decide.

Grigoriy Rasputin and Vladimir Putin may not be related in any way; but they are two perfect examples of the horrors with which the Russian people have had to live — not just for years, but for centuries. Is it any wonder, then, that they have developed the remarkable endurance and stoicism for which they are so well known? For how else could they have survived?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/8/23