For it was in that palace that he was about to meet his bizarre and brutal end — poisoned, beaten and ultimately shot by a gang of his enemies.
Floral tributes were a favourite: ‘Idiots bring fresh flowers every day. Those deemed attractive enough to become one of his ‘little ladies’ would, like Sister Maria, be invited to join him in his study.These devotees came in search of miracle cures or keep-sakes, including Rasputin’s fingernail clippings.These were much prized, despite one St Petersburg restaurant manager testifying that the Man of God’s hands were ‘grimy, with bitten, blackened nails’.It has since been suggested that his secret lay in an ability to calm the Tsarevich, lowering his blood pressure and thus easing the bleeding.Or it might have been his distaste for the new wonder-drug aspirin, dished out by the Russian court doctors for pain relief and only discovered in later years to be an anti-coagulant which would have worsened the bleeding considerably.