Rasputin's penis

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When Grigori Rasputin was murdered in 1916, some claim he was also castrated.[1] Since then, a number of people boasting to be in possession of his severed penis and testicles have come forth, although none of them have been able to come up with conclusive evidence.[2]

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[edit] History of the alleged remains

[edit] 1900s

Conservatives feared Rasputin’s significant and increasing influence on the tsar’s wife, and so, on December 29, 1916, he was murdered.[3] Some accounts say that his killers also castrated him [1], although the official autopsy report claimed that his genitalia were left intact.[4]

According to some, a maid discovered the severed organ at Rasputin’s murder site, keeping it until somehow being acquired in the 1920s by a group of female Russian expatriates living in Paris.[2] The women worshiped the member as a fertility charm, storing it inside a wooden casket.[2] Upon learning of the women, Rasputin's daughter, Marie, demanded that the item be returned to her.[2] She maintained custody of the object until her death in 1977.[2]

A man named Michael Augustine claimed to have purchased the member, along with a number of Rasputin's other personal items, at a lot sale following Marie Rasputin's death. Augustine sold the artifact to Bonhams auction house, but officials quickly realized that the item was not a penis, and was in fact a sea cucumber. [2] It is unclear if the sea creature was the same item worshipped by the aforementioned Russian women in the 1920s, or if Augustine was simply attempting to defraud the auction house.

[edit] 2000s

In 2004, Igor Knyazkin, the chief of the prostate research center of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, announced that he was opening a Russian museum of erotica in St. Petersburg, Russia. Among the exhibits, Knyazkin claims, is the 30cm (11.8 inch) long "preserved penis" of Grigory Rasputin [5], along with several of Rasputin's letters. [2] He stated that he purchased the items from a French collector of antiquities and artifacts for €6,600 (US $8,000). Knyazkin had said that merely viewing the supposed penis will cure males of impotency. [6] It is not known if the genitalia is indeed that of Rasputin.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Another America article on Rasputin
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Museum of Hoaxes article: "Rasputin's Penis: Hoax or not?"
  3. ^ History Channel Encyclopedia entry for Rasputin
  4. ^ Phenomena: Alternate History article: "Unravelling the truth about Rasputin"
  5. ^ MosNews.com article: "Russian Museum to Exhibit Rasputin’s Penis"
  6. ^ IOL.com article on Rasputin

[edit] External links

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