A debauched, illiterate Siberian peasant who turned his sinful life into that of a quasi-religious faith healer and fortune-teller in 19th-century Russia. By "curing" Tsar Nicholas II's son of hemophilia, the "mad monk" became a powerful political and social force in St. Petersburg. This led to an assassination attempt in which Rasputin was poisoned, shot, beaten and eventually drowned.