The Incredible Story Of History's Most Influential Penis
Mystic, holy man, and Duck Dynasty cosplayer Grigori Rasputin is most famously known for his wacky antics with the Russian monarchy and his inability to die. However, there is one thing more resilient than Rasputin himself, and that is the legend of his mighty dong. From what history has shown us, this man's immortal dick will outlast mankind.
Rasputin 101
I'm not going to give the full life story of Grigori Rasputin, so here are the basics. Rasputin was a Russian dude from the late 1800s and early 1900s who looked like he sold exotic iguanas on the Tampa-area Craigslist:
He duped a bunch of Russian nobility into thinking he was a prophet and rose his from humble beginnings as a peasant. And then when he maybe, somehow, actually played a part in the "miraculous" cure of Tsarevich (prince, basically) Alexei's hemophilia, he found his way into the royal inner circle. Not bad for a dude whose alternate career path would've probably involved starving to death in Siberia.
As a trusted advisor and spiritual miracle worker, Rasputin quickly became something of a living legend. Which is fitting, because every town has a legendary figure who looks exactly like Rasputin, but usually they're only famous for screaming about Hillary's death squads in bars and then finding a way to somehow pee in the trunk of your car.
Now, about his penis ...
A Freak In The Streets, A Freak In The Sheets ... Actually, Just Always A Freak
For religious, cultish zealots, the main motivation for getting into the game to begin with always boils down to one thing: boning your followers. Now, as with all things Rasputin, fact and myth often intertwine, but there's a prevalent rumor that he was involved in a big-time orgy group called the "Khlysty," which was the perfect kind of weirdo "pro-sin" sect that would enable him to experiment with some creepy things in a group setting before breaking out on his own as an even more bizarre solo act. He was truly the Justin Timberlake of sticking a dick into half a country.
Around this time, Rasputin became infamous, not only because of the gargantuan gland he was carrying around in those loose Russian pirate pants of his, but also for the prolificacy of his escapades. He became such a notorious horndog that his rumored (unsubstantiated) affair with the tsar's wife reached the front lines of World War I, where soldiers openly talked about it as though it were fact. Rasputin was known for getting laid and causin' trouble, and both of these things may have lead to the horror that was to come.
Related: 21 Important Moments In History (That Were Sex-Fests)
How Rasputin Got Dead
Felix Yussupov was, by all accounts, a total clown: hyper-privileged, married to the tsar's niece, and the richest dude in Russia at the time. And this was back in the days when the "richest person" in any country was doing shit like having their best horses outfitted with rudimentary 3,000-pound engines that added a half mile per hour to its gallop but also incinerated the animal upon activation. Then the rich dudes would wonder why the fuck someone killed their horse, and kill the guy who invented the contraption on the spot. He lived THAT kind of life.
So our horse-torcher Felix was on the periphery of the royal family, and he was decidedly not a Rasputin guy. And Felix believed that murdering Rasputin would make him something of a national hero, resulting in his unanimous celebration and praise. And the best account of Rasputin's murder comes from Felix's own memoirs. So let's take this early Russian version of If I Did It with a pinch of salt. This is a good time to remind you yet again to take everything in this story with a side of salt.
According to Felix's account, he invited Rasputin over to his palace in order to meet with his royal wife, Irina. For Rasputin, this should have set off alarm bells immediately. In the history of history, not once has someone been invited to a palace and not been killed. Even today, if you were to get a text from a buddy that read "Hey bro, havin' the boys over to my palace tonight," prepare to be murdered, bro. But Ras fell for it, probably because he was told there were going to be chicks.
When Rasputin arrived, there were, like, no babes. But Felix did have a shitload of cakes and wine, which Rasputin shoved into his gullet. And as you probably guessed, the main ingredients in those cakes were flour, sugar, and cyanide, and the wine was a nice cocktail of alcohol and cyanide as well. But Felix was about to find out that he wasn't poisoning some regular dude. Felix was attempting to poison the hairy Russian sex machine. Not so easy.
According to him, Rasputin took down all of the poison he had to offer and then just stood there waiting for the next course. Baffled and frustrated that he had spent all day baking death treats and seeing that his potions tactics were doing very poorly in this particular boss fight, he ended up just shooting Rasputin. And while many historians over the years have questioned Felix's claims that he was the man to take down this horse-dicked Michael Myers, what remains undeniable is that Rasputin was eventually successfully murdered.
Related: 6 People So Good At Sex They're Basically Magic
The Case Of The Stolen Penis
Here's where the line between truth and myth gets entirely erased and all we can do is go with it. In the time between Felix giving Rasputin Little Debbie's Cyanide Rollups and shooting him a bunch of times in the face to get him dead, Rasputin may have been mutilated as well. One of the biggest rumors is that a maid stumbled upon that particular dick in the house and took it with her. So they next time you complain about your hotel service not giving you the number of towels you asked for, remember that they could be stealing your severed penis.
Another prominent legend about how Rasputin's wandering wiener got set loose in the world is that it was actually yanked off during his autopsy by a former lover. In this version of the story, one would have to imagine that Russian autopsies were super, SUPER chill. It's like a buffet, where you think, "Oooh, I'll have the sweet and sour chicken, the fried rice, and the large rotting dick." So these are the two main theories surrounding how his dick ended up on its hundred-year solo voyage, and we can only run with them now.
Related: 5 Historical Events You Didn't Know Were Decided By Sex
The Holy Hog
It wasn't until years later that Rasputin's manhood allegedly popped up again, this time in the possession of a group of Russian women living in Paris. That undocumented gap is the Pixar movie I want to watch, in which a lost, lonely, Josh-Gad-voiced Raspenis finds his way in the big city. Anyway, the women, convinced that they possessed something truly holy, carried the sacred salami around in a box. And then they'd open up the box and let people look at it, even offering pieces of it to those who seemed deserving. Bit of old dick for a kind soul?
The point is, at this stage Rasputin's (alleged) rotting old crank had become an object of fascination and reverence, for reasons that mostly boil down to "You had to be there." Finally, upon hearing that her dad's dog was the hottest new French finger food, Rasputin's daughter figured enough was enough. The (completely unverified) story goes that Maria Rasputin tracked down the cock cult and regained possession so that the mysdick could return home and be respectfully placed on the mantle or whatever.
Related: 5 Ancient Gods Whose Genitals Should Have Their Own Movie
Penis Forgery!
Razy's dinger did what it do for a while, which was shrivel and retreat from the public eye, only this time it was for over half a century. But in 1994, it came out of hiding once again, this time in the possession of an American collector who showed up and claimed that not only did he weirdly have a spare dick in his possession, but it belonged to the Mad Monk himself.
This man claimed that he found it in a storage locker, scattered among other artifacts that once belonged to Rasputin. And to be honest, this is a pretty strong claim. Take a look at one of those storage places and tell me it doesn't scream "There are at least five years' worth of National Geographics in there, an old piano, and countless severed penises." Naturally, this dude was totally full of shit, as for some reason, he agreed to have tests done on the item. And what they found was not a penis, but what oceanographers frequently call "the dick of the deep": a genuine sea cucumber.
You do have to give it to this man, though, as that's an absurd level of commitment for something that's not even remotely in the wheelhouse of good penis forgery. I'd like to think the next move for this "collector" was to bring George Washington's personal writing desk onto Antiques Roadshow, just to have an appraiser whose only job is to identify presidential writing surfaces tell him that this thing is made out of graham crackers and to please get the fuck out.
Still, I don't want any of that to distract from the matter at hand, which is that nearly 80 years after Rasputin's death, there was still enough of an aura around his detached member that merely claiming to have it in your possession could get you headlines.
Related: 5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
The Final Resting Place
With that collector out of the way, one final heir to the hog has since stepped up: the totally legit-sounding Museum of Russia Erotica. It's insane to think that such a place even exists, because I've always been under the impression that eroticism in Russia amounts to nodding in agreement to your partner that the soup is indeed hot enough to your liking. Regardless, they claim that they've got the genuine genitalia in their possession, and it's all yours to lay eyes on, should you ever make it to the wonderland that is Museum of Russia Erotica.
So if you ever find yourself there, being a sane and rational person who travels to Russia to look at dismembered penises, just know that the museum even promises that this thing isn't a sea cucumber. However, I have seen pictures of the "penis," and I'm calling bullshit (though you can make up your own mind if you dare). Comically large (12 inches is comically large, right?) and impossibly preserved, there is absolutely no way it's real.
And yet the founder of the museum claims he paid $8,000 for the probably-fake dong. And if so, he did it because he knew other people would pay to come see it, even now. In that way, Rasputin's penis is just like Santa Claus: Its true magic lies in its ability to make us believe.
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