Inside bizarre death of controversial monk after 'worst ever execution' for bringing down royal family

One of Russia's most infamous figures met with a truly horrifying end.

You probably know Grigori Rasputin from the viral 1978 song by Boney M which starts with the iconic words 'there was a man, in Russia long ago', before going into extended detail about how every woman in Russia seemingly couldn't resist him.

But there's a lot more to Rasputin than fame in an awesome disco song, including that he managed to annoy the Russian nobility so much they went to extreme lengths to kill him.

In fact the song, which saw a massive resurgence in its popularity in recent years after it became a viral sound on TikTok, actually alludes to Rasputin's brutal end.

Lyrics in the final verse say: "They put some poison into his wine [...] He drank it all and he said, 'I feel fine', before it concludes: "They didn't quit, they wanted his head [...] And so they shot him 'til he was dead."

But while this gives us an idea, the disco song doesn't tell us the whole story.

This doesn't look like someone you would want to annoy (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Rasputin came from humble origins, but his charisma saw him catch the attention of the very upper echelons of Russian society.

The monk built up a reputation as a healer, mystic, and political radical.

By 1916 however Rasputin had managed to annoy a lot of people in Russia who any sensible person really would not want to get on the wrong side of.

But if you've got any impression of Rasputin so far, 'sensible' is probably not a word you would use to describe him.

So what did his enemies actually do to him?

Well, nobles including Felix Yusupov lured the monk to the Moika Palace in St Petersburg on December 29, 1916.

There, they took him to a cellar and gave him pastries and wine.

You've probably guessed that these were poisoned, and not just any poison - they were laced with potassium cyanide.

But despite devouring the pastries and wine, Rasputin appeared unaffected.

Rasputin just wouldn't die (Laski Diffusion/Getty Images)

So his murderers had to improvise, seizing a pistol and shooting him, but he still wouldn't die, stumbling out into the yard where they pursued him and shot him again.

Finally, they wrapped Rasputin in a cloth and dumped him into a frozen river.

Rasputin's precise cause of death remains a mystery, but forensic evidence released after his death showed no water in his lungs, suggesting that he did not drown and was dead before being thrown in the river.

Yusupov would later write: “This devil who was dying of poison, who had a bullet in his heart, must have been raised from the dead by the powers of evil. There was something appalling and monstrous in his diabolical refusal to die.”