Portrait of Grigori Rasputin by Klokachёva EN

Photo: Portrait drawing of Rasputin, signed and dated in 1914 by Elena Nikandrovna Klokacheva, colour pencils and pastel on grey card, 81.5 x 56 cm, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia

The history of fine arts has an interesting artist, Elena Nikandrovna Klokacheva, who is still remembered and taken seriously just for one of her many works. That is the drawing that you see above. It is one of the prized possessions of the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Klokacheva (also spelt as Klakachova and Klakacheva), was born on 25 November 1871 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. But historians are not sure about the date or year of her death excepting that it was ‘not before 1943’. This computation is based on the fact that Klokacheva had made charcoal portraits of some of the Spanish military physicians who were on assignment the Spanish Blue Division, participating in the Siege of Leningrad, had a field dressing station in Pavlovsk in 1942 and 1943. Their families still have two of the portraits in Spain.

And the value of this portrait of Rasputin by Elena Klokachёva may hit through the roof just because it is one of the few surviving portraits of Rasputin.

Perhaps no other historical figure from anywhere in the world have lived so long through various media as much as Grigori Rasputin since his death in 1916. Ever since then, till the present times, he has been appearing continuously as a popular character in dozens of films, books, TV productions, theater, comics, music and many more media.

Rasputin is reported to have prophetically said, “Without me everything will collapse”. And the outcome of the Bolshevik revolution proved he correctly predicted the future of Russia.

In yet another case, he is said to have predicted his own murder and warned in a letter written to the emperor Nicholas II that if the Russian nobles would do it, it would be the end of the monarchy. Just to prove he was right, following the February Revolution of 1917, the emperor and his family were imprisoned, and eventually executed by the Bolsheviks on the night of 16-17 July 1918.

A curious and interesting observation of life imitating art can be seen in the death of Bobby Farrell, the male member of the music band Boney M. One of the hit songs of the band is “Rasputin", loosely based on the life of the Russian mystic. Farrell had even dressed up as Rasputin in some of the stage performances of the song by Boney M. On 30 December 2010 Farrell died of heart failure in a hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Reportedly, it occurred in the same city and on the same date in December as the death of Rasputin.

Engagement photo of Alexandra and Nicholas II

Official engagement photo of Alexandra and Nicholas II, April 1894

Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

Image: Portrait of Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna by Nikolai Kornilievich Bodarevsky, Tsarskoe Selo, Russia, 1907

Born Alix von Hessen und bei Rhein (6 June 1872 - 17 July 1918), was Empress Consort of Russia as the spouse of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of the Russian Empire. She was born a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and later given the name Alexandra Feodorovna on admission into the Russian Orthodox Church, which canonized her as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer in 2000.

Alexandra, the last Tsarina of Russia, was best-known as one of the most famous royal carriers of the haemophilia disease, as well as for her notorious friendship with the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin, who was an important factor in her life.

The Provisional Government formed after the Russian revolution kept Alexandra, Nicholas II and their children confined in their primary residence, the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, until they were moved to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917. On 30 April 1918 they were transferred to the town of Yekaterinburg, where they were imprisoned in the two-story Ipatiev House. Alexandra and her family, including the seriously ill son Alexei, along with several family servants, were executed by firing and bayonets in the basement of the Ipatiev House early in the morning of 17 July 1918, by a detachment of Bolsheviks led by Yakov Yurovsky.

Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire

Photo: Front view of the Imperial Crown: cross is an addition from the early 11th century; the arch dates from the reign of Emperor Conrad II (ruled 1024-1039); the red velvet cap is from the 18th century. It is made of gold, cloisonné enamel, precious stones, and pearls.

The crown is of the King of the Romans, the rulers of the German Kingdom, since the High Middle Ages, from when most of the kings were crowned with it. Probably, it was made somewhere in western Germany (10th century). The Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, especially the Imperial Crown, were all kept 1424-1796 in Nuremberg, Franconia, and could only leave the city for the coronation. Now the crown and the rest of the Imperial Regalia are exhibited at the Hofburg in Vienna, officially ‘until there is again a Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation’.