What job or business did he have? Well, he had a farm in Siberia which his family took care of when he was away in St. Petersburg.
In some ways you could compare him to the modern gurus who gets supported by their disciples. I´m quite sure he was´nt a saint in any way, shape or form. He had flaws to be sure, but I´m also sure he was´nt the "evil devil" his murderers portrayed him to be. If I was his murderer, I too would portray him like that, and myself as a hero for murdering him. The truth is´nt black or white (devil contra saint). The truth is probably somewhere in between. To be sure, some of the people who wanted to get to know him had their own reasons for doing so, because they knew he could put in a good word for them in the right places, so they brought him gifts and money and asked him to do so. So, I guess you could say both parties "leeched" off each other. And then we have the true "disciples" who partly supported him. I guess you could say all "gurus" are "leeches", but that´s not how their followers see them. They think they get a lot in return. Anyway, if you want to know the facts you should read Edvard Radzinsky´s book, "Rasputin - The Last Word", which is fairly objective, or at least more objective than most books on Rasputin which just keep repeating the old "evil devil" story, which began with the murderers own books and have been repeated ever since.
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Jakealope
12 years ago
He certainly was no devil, he was against the war because of all the suffering it caused the people. He was more like a symptom of how corrupt and incompetent Nicolas Romanov's reign was that such a man as he could get so far. Would a well led government and competent ruler let a man like him get any sort of influence, beyond his family's affections?
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Grishka
12 years ago
Exactly! It was a corrupt regime and Tsar Nicholas was somewhat incompetent as a ruler, even members of his own family thought as much. That said, I think Rasputin´s political influence has been exaggerated to a point where all the anti-Rasputin books have portrayed him as practically ruling Russia. Of course, we´ll never know how big or how small his influence was in this regard since there´s no solid proof. There´s proof he had enough influence to get a certain person appointed as bishop of Tobolsk, and in the Tsaritsa´s letters to the Tsar, she tells her husband he should follow Rasputin´s advice and appoint Protopopov Prime Minister, and he did indeed become Prime Minister shortly before the dynasty collapsed, but who knows if he had´nt been appointed anyway.
That´s the only two instances where one can prove Rasputin had a say in appointments of ministers and clergy. That does´nt necessarily mean he did´nt have a say regarding other appointments, but it just can´t be proved and that has led to all kinds of speculations, some fairly reasonable and some not so reasonable.
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