Rasputin: From Pokrovskoye to the Moika Palace

The village is Rasputin's birthplace: he was born a peasant in Pokrovskoye on the Tura River, and official records give his birth as 21 January 1869. He later held secret prayer meetings in a makeshift chapel in his father's root cellar. In 1914 a woman stabbed him in the stomach outside his home here; he survived. Today the village has a house-museum founded by villagers in 1990. It stands across the street from the spot where his real house stood, which has not been preserved.

Location precision: The exact house is gone; the pin marks the village, and the house-museum stands across the street from where it stood.

Visitor guidance: The Grigori Rasputin House-Museum is in the village, in Yarkovsky District, Tyumen Oblast.

This is where the peasant first enters Saint Petersburg society. On arriving at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Rasputin was introduced to church leaders, among them Archimandrite Theofan, who was so impressed that he invited him to stay in his home. Theofan opened the doors of the city's aristocratic salons to him. The monastery was founded by Peter I in 1710 at the eastern end of Nevsky Prospekt, where it still stands.

Visitor guidance: The Lavra sits at the eastern end of Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg.

On 1 November 1905 Rasputin first met Tsar Nicholas II, at the Peterhof Palace. The tsar noted in his diary that he and the empress had "made the acquaintance of a man of God—Grigory, from Tobolsk province". Peterhof, commissioned by Peter the Great as a response to Versailles, is today a palace and garden complex.

Location precision: The sources name the Peterhof Palace but not which building; the pin marks the palace complex.

Visitor guidance: Peterhof Palace is in Petergof, Saint Petersburg.

In December 1916 a group of nobles including Prince Felix Yusupov planned to lure Rasputin to the Yusupovs' Moika Palace. He was murdered in the early morning of 30 December at Yusupov's home. In Yusupov's own memoir he is served tea and cakes laced with cyanide, yet seems unaffected. Historians stress that little is certain beyond the fact of his death. Today the rooms linked to the murder are part of a museum open for tours.

Visitor guidance: The palace on the Moika embankment runs public tours that include the part of the building tied to the murder.

Two workmen noticed blood on the railing of the Petrovsky Bridge and a boot on the ice below, and the police began to search. Rasputin's body was found under the river ice on 1 January, about 200 metres downstream from the bridge. The surgeon who examined it found no evidence that he had been poisoned, which sits uneasily with the famous cyanide story.

Location precision: The sources name the Petrovsky Bridge only; the pin marks the Bolshoy Petrovsky Bridge.

Rasputin was buried on 2 January at a small church that Vyrubova had been building at Tsarskoye Selo. His body was later exhumed and burned by soldiers on Kerensky's orders, so that the grave would not become a rallying point for supporters of the old regime. Tsarskoye Selo lies 24 kilometres south of central Saint Petersburg.

Location precision: The sources name the church only as one at Tsarskoye Selo; the pin marks the town.