Chapter Seven - The Country Starts Falling Apart

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Country Starts Falling Apart

BY NOW, THE Russian Empire was wobbling like a drunk table. Cracks in the surface. Screws missing. One good push and the whole thing might flip.

And wouldn’t you know it, Rasputin was standing right there with his hands on the table, smiling.

It’s not that he caused everything. But he made everything worse. Especially when Nicholas II, in a moment of royal brain fog, decided to leave the capital and go command the military himself.

Yes. The Tsar of Russia, zero military experience, mid-revolution, in the middle of a world war, said “I got this,” and left the actual governing to his wife.

Which meant Rasputin just got a promotion.

The Tsarina was now the de facto ruler of Russia. And Rasputin was her advisor, therapist, prophet, personnel manager, and maybe unofficial prime minister. He was sending letters. Making calls. Picking ministers. Firing generals. Telling people who God liked and who was lying.

This wasn’t behind-the-scenes influence anymore. It was the slow-motion hijacking of an empire.

And people noticed.

Letters between Rasputin and the Tsarina started leaking. And they weren’t just politically concerning. They were weird. Obsessive. Intimate in a way that made everyone uncomfortable. Some were interpreted as spiritual devotion. Others sounded like something you'd find in a locked diary under a mattress.

Rasputin would call her “my dear, sweet dove.” She’d call him “our savior.” Sometimes she asked him to bless objects. Sometimes she asked him to bless her soul. Either way, it didn’t look good.

The press loved it. They published rumors, forgeries, and real letters all mixed together. The public couldn’t tell what was true, but it didn’t matter. Because the whole thing looked ridiculous. And deadly.

Back at the front, Nicholas was losing the war. At home, the people were starving. Strikes, riots, and protests were popping off in every major city. And the nobility had officially moved from “concerned” to “furious.”

To them, Rasputin was no longer a joke. He was a virus. A symptom of everything wrong. A festering wound in the body politic, and now it was infected.

Still, he endured. Still untouchable. Still in the palace. Still staring, drinking, and grinning.

Still calling the shots through someone else’s hands.

Russia was falling apart.

And Rasputin, somehow, was closer to the center of power than ever.