When Grigori Rasputin arrived in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire, in 1903, his reputation was already very controversial. A wise man and healer for some, a debauchee, thief, alcoholic and womanizer for others, he had every intention of making his way to the tsar. For the capital's elite, this Siberian peasant's son became a kind of charismatic spiritual master. His strangeness intrigued and his powers fascinated.