HAPPENED UPON THIS BEAUTIFUL palace in St. Petersburg in Russian Architectural Digest and immediately regretted not speaking a word of Russian, and the fact that Google translate is not great with this particular language. I know this, because one time, had used the translator for another article and the word boyfriend was translated to “nice little buddy”. Did, however, managed to find the name of the palace–Moika, as it is known or Yusupov Palace [in Russian: Дворец Юсуповых на Мойке, meaning the Palace of the Yusupovs on the Moika], which lead to a little research and some very interesting information indeed . . .
The Moika Palace was once the primary residence of the House of Yusupov in St. Petersburg, Russia and [this is the interesting part] was also the site of Rasputin‘s murder in 1916.
Built around 1770 by the French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe, the Moika Palace would be worked on as well, by many other well-known architects over the years, creating a mix of architectural styles. The modern incarnation, as it appears today, was brought about by A. Mikhailov, who reconstructed the building in the 1830s when the Yusupovs, a wealthy family of Russian nobles became the owners. As such, in the time of Imperial Russia, the palace became known as the Yusupov Palace.
More than 40,000 works of art–including works by Rembrandt–jewellery, and sculptures were kept there. The palace is most famous, however, because of what took place one fateful night . . .
It all began with the last prince, Felix Yusupov, who was thought to be as wealthy as the tsar himself. Yusupov owned 57 palaces in Russia, including four in St. Petersburg, and the palace on the Moika was the prince’s favorite residence there. Of course, there is much dispute regarding the exact events surrounding Rasputin’s death, but the macabre story, according to Yusupov, is that . . .
. . . on the night of December 16, 1916 he, along with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of the House of Romanov, invited Grigori Rasputin to the Moika Palace, where they served their guest cakes and red wine laced with cyanide—enough to kill five men. As Rasputin appeared unaffected by the poison, Yusupov retrieved a revolver and shot him in the back, then left him for dead. A short while later, Yusupov returned to find Rasputin still alive, and shot him again–three more times at close range, but Rasputin was still attempting to get up and flee, at which point, the men clubbed him in the head repeatedly with an iron bar, wrapped him in a carpet, threw him into the Moika River. The autopsy would later reveal that neither the poison, nor the multiple gunshot wounds, nor the clubbing caused Rasputin’s death, but rather, he died of hypothermia.
Of course, much of Yusupov’s gruesome account is considered unbelievable, the stuff of urban legend. The Russian Revolution would follow shortly after Rasputin’s death, and once the Soviets came to power, they confiscated the property of the nobles, including the palace. In 1925, Yusupov Palace was handed over to the city’s Education Commissaria, and today it serves as a Palace of Culture for Educators and is also a museum to Rasputin’s murder. It is, of course, also a beautiful example of Russian history & architecture.
