Grigori Rasputin Trivia
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49 free Grigori Rasputin trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Grigori Rasputin trivia quiz separates the documented life of the Siberian faith healer from the legend that grew around him. The easy questions cover the basics: the imperial family he befriended, the sick boy he was believed to heal, the illness the boy had, the prince who led his murder and the disco song that made him a household name again in 1978. From there it moves through his obscure early life, the 1897 pilgrimage that changed him, the years as a wandering strannik, the Montenegrin princesses who introduced him at court and the surname he asked the tsar to let him change. The harder end covers the Spała crisis of 1912 and the telegram that told the empress not to grieve, the governess who was fired for complaining about him, the 1914 stabbing by a follower of Iliodor, the palace job of lamplighter, and the murder itself: the poisoned Madeira, the shots, the bridge, the autopsy that found no water in the lungs and no poison, and what Kerensky's soldiers did to the body in 1917. It ends with the daughter who became a lion tamer. Every answer was checked against Rasputin's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Russian Revolution and Romanov quizzes carry the story on.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rasputin gained his influence through his friendship with the family of which ruler?
Nicholas II
Nicholas II. Russia's last tsar brushed off most warnings about Rasputin: the more the press and the public attacked the healer, the more firmly the imperial family stood by him.
Q 02In which region of Russia was Rasputin born?
Siberia
Siberia. He was a peasant's son from a village on the Tura River, and that was part of his pull: the tsar prized him as a plain man who spoke for ordinary Russians.
Q 03What was the name of Rasputin's home village?
Pokrovskoye
Pokrovskoye. Fame never uprooted him: he kept going back to the village on the Tura River for long spells, and it now has a museum devoted to him.
Q 04A popular myth says the surname Rasputin was a nickname meaning what?
Debauched one
Debauched one. The Russian word rasputnik means a libertine, so the story spread that he had earned the name, but it was simply the family surname he got from his father.
Q 05Which feature of Rasputin did people who met him most often single out?
His eyes
His eyes. Witness after witness described a piercing, almost hypnotic stare, which is one reason some historians think hypnosis lay behind his apparent healing.
Q 06Despite the nickname 'the Mad Monk', what was Rasputin's actual rank in the Orthodox Church?
A plain layman
A plain layman. He never took vows or holy orders: the 'monk' was a married peasant with three surviving children, and the tutor of the tsar's son called the label quite inaccurate.
Q 07During the First World War, rumour accused Rasputin and the empress of secretly serving which enemy power?
Germany
Germany. Alexandra had been born a German princess, so leaflets and cartoons showed the pair plotting with the Kaiser, though the claims were unfounded.
Q 08What happened in Russia less than three months after Rasputin was killed?
The tsar abdicated
The tsar abdicated. He gave up the throne in March 1917, and many historians argue the scandal around Rasputin had already wrecked the monarchy's standing.
Q 09Where did Rasputin stay before he came home a changed man who had sworn off alcohol?
A monastery
A monastery. He came back from Verkhoturye a changed man who had given up drink, though by his daughter's account he took to wine again once he was famous in the capital.
Q 10Rasputin lived for years as a 'strannik', a Russian word meaning what?
A wandering pilgrim
A wandering pilgrim. Such men tramped from church to church living on charity, and Rasputin may have walked as far as Mount Athos in Greece.
Q 11What lure brought Rasputin to the palace on the night he was murdered?
A chance to meet his host's wife
A chance to meet his host's wife. Princess Irina, the tsar's niece and a famous beauty, was the bait, though she was in fact far away in Crimea that night.
Q 12Rasputin was repeatedly rumoured to belong to which ecstatic sect, though investigations never proved it?
The Khlysty
The Khlysty. Repeated church inquiries failed to show he had ever joined and were closed for lack of evidence, yet historians still argue over how much of the sect's teaching he borrowed.
Q 13Princesses Militsa and Anastasia, who brought Rasputin to the tsar's notice, came from which Balkan country?
Montenegro
Q 21In a 2022 Doctor Who special, which villain posed as Rasputin at the tsar's court?
The Master
The Master. Sacha Dhawan's villain taunts the Doctor by dancing to a 1978 disco hit about Rasputin, a scene he said he had only one or two takes to get right.
Q 22Which British actor won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing Rasputin in a 1996 HBO film?
Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman. The film was shot in Russia inside several of the tsars' own restored palaces, and its story is narrated by the tsar's young son.
Q 23Which future star of Doctor Who played Rasputin in a 1971 film epic about the last tsar?
Tom Baker
Tom Baker. Laurence Olivier, his boss at the National Theatre, put his name forward, and the little-known actor came away with two Golden Globe nominations.
Montenegro. The sisters had married into the Romanov family and were devotees of the occult, and Rasputin was not their first find: they had already steered an earlier wonder-worker to the palace.
Q 14How were Rasputin's aristocratic killers punished?
Exiled without a trial
Exiled without a trial. The tsar banished one to a country estate and another to the army in Persia, a posting that kept him out of the Bolsheviks' reach when the revolution came.
Q 15From what condition did the tsarevich Alexei suffer, which Rasputin was believed able to ease?
Haemophilia
Haemophilia. The gene came down from Queen Victoria, his great-grandmother, and because the family kept the illness secret, outsiders could not see why Rasputin was always at the palace.
Q 16Which confidante of the empress became one of Rasputin's chief advocates from around 1907?
Anna Vyrubova
Anna Vyrubova. Her devotion became absolute after a 1915 train crash, when Rasputin came to her bedside and, she believed, prayed her back from the brink of death.
Q 17In 1912, with the tsar's son close to death, how did the far-off Rasputin deliver his famous reassurance?
By telegram
By telegram. 'The Little One will not die,' he wired, telling the doctors not to bother the boy too much; Alexei pulled through, and from then on Alexandra thought Rasputin indispensable.
Q 18Some historians think Rasputin helped Alexei simply by keeping doctors from giving him which common painkiller?
Aspirin
Aspirin. The widely used painkiller may have been making the boy worse, for a reason medicine only worked out decades later, so waving the doctors away could truly have helped.
Q 19In their wartime letters to each other, how did the tsar and tsarina usually refer to Rasputin?
'Our Friend'
'Our Friend'. The phrase became a test of loyalty: Alexandra objected to one new war minister by asking her husband whether the man was not 'our Friend's enemy'.
Q 20Which tsarist secret police force shadowed Rasputin day and night in his final years?
The Okhrana
The Okhrana. Its agents were his bodyguards and his watchers at once, keeping an eye on the callers from every class of society who filled his flat from morning to night.
Q 24Which prime minister ordered an investigation into Rasputin and took the findings to the tsar?
Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Stolypin. Even he felt the pull: after one meeting he recalled that Rasputin plainly had great hypnotic power and had made a strong impression on him, though one of sheer revulsion.
Q 25What did the tsar do in 1915 that left the empress and Rasputin holding sway in the capital?
Took command of the army
Took command of the army. With him away at headquarters, Alexandra hired and fired ministers so fast that critics called it 'ministerial leapfrog', and gossip credited every change to Rasputin.
Q 26What did a woman use when she tried to kill Rasputin outside his home in 1914?
A knife
A knife. Khioniya Guseva, a follower of a priest who had turned on Rasputin, stabbed him in the stomach, and he spent weeks in hospital before he recovered.
Q 27In the crisis of July 1914, what did Rasputin urge the tsar to do?
Keep Russia out of the war
Keep Russia out of the war. He warned that fighting would bring nothing but disaster; the tsar went to war anyway, and as the defeats mounted the country blamed Rasputin and the empress.
Q 28Which prince lured Rasputin to his palace on the night of the murder?
Felix Yusupov
Felix Yusupov. Married to the tsar's niece, he escaped the revolution and lived in Paris until 1967, telling and retelling in his memoirs how he had done it.
Q 29By the killers' own account, which poison laced the cakes and wine they served Rasputin?
Cyanide
Cyanide. Yet the autopsy found no trace of poison, and his daughter insisted he never ate sweet things, so the famous cakes may owe more to the telling than to the night.
Q 30In comics and film, Rasputin leads the wartime occult ritual that brings which demon hero to Earth?
Hellboy
Hellboy. In Mike Mignola's story Rasputin is working for the Nazis in 1944, but the infant demon his ritual summons is found and raised by the Allies instead.