Rasputin has been tied in the immortality of history to the ill-fated Romanov family. Some may even say that he was the cause of their destruction. Whatever you may think about him: powerful mystic or drunken fruitcake, he wormed his way into the heart of the imperial family and he just didn't want to go. The legends surrounding the death of Rasputin are perhaps even more mysterious and bizarre than his life. The first attempt on Rasputin's life failed; on June 29, 1914, after either just receiving a telegram or exiting church, he was attacked suddenly by Khionia Guseva, a former prostitute. The woman thrust a knife into Rasputin's abdomen, and his entrails hung out of what seemed like a mortal wound. Convinced of her success, Guseva supposedly screamed, "I have killed the antichrist!". After intensive surgery, however, Rasputin recovered. It was said of his survival that "the soul of this cursed muzhik was sewn on his body”.

On December 16, 1916, having decided that Rasputin's influence over the Tsaritsa had made him a far-too-dangerous threat to the empire, a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Yusupov and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and politician Vladimir Purishkevich, apparently lured Rasputin to the Yusupovs' Moika Palace basement, where they served him cakes and red wine laced with a massive amount of cyanide. According to legend, Rasputin was unaffected, although Maklakov had supplied enough poison to kill five men. Determined to finish the job, Yusupov became anxious about the possibility that Rasputin might live until the morning, leaving the conspirators no time to conceal his body. Yusupov ran upstairs to consult the others and then came back down to shoot Rasputin through the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell, and the company left the palace for a while. Yusupov went to check up on the body. Suddenly, Rasputin opened his eyes and lunged at him. When he grabbed Prince Yusupov he ominously whispered in Yusupov's ear "you bad boy" and attempted to escape. Yusopov and his co-conspirators chased Rasputin out into the yard, shooting him two more times and beating him with a rubber club. To ensure he didn't rouse again, the men tied Rasputin in a blanket and dumped his body into the Neva River. His body was found with his right arm outstretched, presumably to make the sign of the cross, indicating that he was still alive when he hit the water and managed to partially free himself. An autopsy established that the cause of death was drowning. His arms were found in an upright position, as if he had tried to claw his way out from under the ice (the Neva Riva freezes between November 25 and December 5, and the ice is gone only by mid-April). It was found that he had indeed been poisoned, and that the poison alone should have been enough to kill him.