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50 free Grigori Rasputin trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 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.
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Q 01Rasputin gained his influence through his friendship with the family of which ruler?
Nicholas II
He first met the tsar on 1 November 1905; Nicholas's diary calls him 'a man of God – Grigory, from Tobolsk province'.
Q 02In which region of Russia was Rasputin born?
Siberia
His village lies on the Tura River in what is now Tyumen Oblast.
Q 03What was the name of Rasputin's home village?
Pokrovskoye
He kept returning there throughout his years of fame; his wife stayed there for the whole of his rise.
Q 04Rasputin was named after which saint, whose feast fell the day after his birth?
St. Gregory of Nyssa
He was christened the day after his birth on 21 January 1869.
Q 05Besides farming, what job did Rasputin's father Yefim do between Tobolsk and Tyumen?
Government courier
Seven or eight of Rasputin's siblings died in infancy or early childhood.
Q 06How was Rasputin's youth described by historian Douglas Smith?
'A black hole about which we know almost nothing'
Archives show an unruly youth but no charge of horse theft, blasphemy or false witness, the crimes later pinned on him.
Q 07Whom did Rasputin marry in February 1887?
Praskovya Dubrovina
She stayed in the home village and remained devoted to him until his death; three of their seven children reached adulthood.
Q 08How old was Rasputin when he left home on the 1897 pilgrimage that transformed him?
28
He had been married ten years and had an infant son and another child on the way.
Q 09Where, in 1897, was Rasputin 'profoundly humbled' by the elder Makary?
St. Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye
He may have learned to read and write there; he came home a vegetarian who had sworn off alcohol.
Q 10What Russian term describes the wandering holy man Rasputin became after 1897?
Strannik
He held no official position in the Orthodox Church, despite the 'mad monk' label.
Q 11Where did Rasputin's small circle of followers hold secret prayer meetings in the early 1900s?
A makeshift chapel in his father's root cellar
Villagers rumoured that women washed him before each meeting and that he had joined a secret sect.
Q 12Rasputin was repeatedly rumoured to belong to which ecstatic sect, though investigations never proved it?
The Khlysty
The sect's rituals were said to include self-flagellation and orgies; historian Fuhrmann calls the rumours unfounded.
Q 13Which two Montenegrin princesses introduced Rasputin to the Russian imperial family?
Q 21Which governess was fired after complaining that Rasputin visited the grand duchesses in their nightgowns?
Sofia Tyutcheva
The tsar asked Rasputin to stop the visits, but Alexandra had the governess dismissed.
Q 22Where did the tsar send Rasputin on pilgrimage after the tsarina's letters and pornographic cartoons circulated?
Palestine
Alexandra was displeased; the family's association with him continued right up to his murder.
Q 23What palace job did the tsar appoint Rasputin to, giving him regular access to the family?
Lamplighter for the icons
The 'lampadnik' kept the lamps lit before the religious icons.
Militsa and Anastasia
They were known in society as the 'Black Princesses'.
Q 14At which palace did Rasputin first meet the tsar on 1 November 1905?
Peterhof
He went home soon after and did not come back to the capital until July 1906.
Q 15From what condition did the tsarevich Alexei suffer, which Rasputin was believed able to ease?
Haemophilia
The empress came to see Rasputin as essential to her only son's survival.
Q 16Which confidante of the empress became one of Rasputin's chief advocates from around 1907?
Anna Vyrubova
He was later buried at a small church she was building at Tsarskoye Selo.
Q 17Where was the imperial family when Alexei's 1912 haemorrhage prompted a telegram to Rasputin?
Spała
The boy had been injured on a jolting carriage ride near the imperial hunting grounds there.
Q 18What did Rasputin's 1912 telegram advise the empress about the doctors?
Not to let them bother the boy too much
'The Little One will not die,' he wrote; the bleeding stopped two days later, and Dr Fedorov called the recovery medically inexplicable.
Q 19Which common painkiller, unknown as an anti-clotting agent until the 1950s, do some think Rasputin kept from Alexei?
Aspirin
Pierre Gilliard, the boy's French tutor, was among those who made the suggestion.
Q 20How did the imperial children refer to Rasputin?
'Our friend'
He sent them telegrams; one to nine-year-old Maria began 'My Dear Pearl M!'
Q 24In December 1906, the healer asked the tsar's permission to change his surname to what?
Rasputin-Noviy
The speed of the approval shows how early he had won the tsar's favour.
Q 25Which prime minister ordered an investigation into Rasputin and confronted the tsar, without success?
Pyotr Stolypin
The Okhrana secret police also opposed him; the Bishop of Tobolsk had launched an inquest in 1907.
Q 26When the tsar left for the front in 1915, Rasputin's influence reached its peak alongside whom?
Empress Alexandra
A far-right Duma deputy called them 'the evil genius of Russia and the Tsarina... who has remained a German on the Russian throne'.
Q 27On 12 July 1914, who stabbed Rasputin in the stomach outside his home?
Khioniya Guseva
She was a follower of the defrocked priest Iliodor and was declared insane; Rasputin recovered after surgery in Tyumen.
Q 28What was Rasputin on his way to do when he was stabbed in 1914?
Send a telegram urging the tsar to avoid war
He had just learned from the tsarina that Russia was preparing for war.
Q 29Which prince's palace was Rasputin lured to on the night of his murder?
Felix Yusupov's
The Moika Palace basement is now a museum tableau of the killing.
Q 30According to Yusupov's memoirs, what poison was in the cakes and Madeira offered to Rasputin?
Cyanide
Rasputin's daughter said he avoided sweets and would never have eaten the cakes; the autopsy found no poison.