Wax figures of Grand Duke Pavlovich & Yusupovsky brothers

In the palace cellar, wax figures of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich with Prince Felix Yusupovsky and his brother recreate the scene of the notorious assassination of Gregory Rasputin. Rasputin, born in Siberia in 1869, arrived in St. Petersburg in 1911 and within a few years had become one of the most influential men in government circles. He was able to remain in a position of influence despite widely publicized bouts of drinking and womanizing. Rasputin's rise to preeminence was due to his close relationship with Nicholas II's wife, Alexandra. The Tsar's son, Alexis, heir to the throne, suffered from hemophaelia, and only Rasputin could do what the top medical professionals could not: he could stop the boy's bleeding. Because of this, Alexandra believed he was a holy man sent to protect Alexis and she kept him close by at all times, despite the fact that he rarely bathed. Grigory Rasputin is as famous for his death as he is for his life. At the end of 1916, a group of aristocrats in cahoots with the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (a cousin of Nicholas II) decided that Rasputin's influence had grown too great and that he had to be killed in order to save Russia. They lured him to the Yusupovsky Palace on the pretext that Prince Felix Yusupovsky would introduce Grigory Rasputin to his beautiful wife. Rasputin was led to the cellar and fed poisoned cakes and wine, but these did not affect him.