The man was Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, from the Siberian village of Pokroevskoe. Alexandra took to him immediately. When Vachot had left in 1904 (with the emperor and empress's ardent blessing), he prophesied that another would come in his place. The Tsaritsa took Rasputin for this man, and welcomed him gratefully. "Father Grigori," she called him, but in reality Rasputin was not an ordained priest at all. He was a simple peasant who wandered around the country, preaching, prophesying, and sometimes, as in Rasputin's case, hypnotizing to show his "powers." The name for them was starets. And in that place and era, it was not unusual for the highest of Russians to associate with these people. Mysticism, occultism, those were the fads of the day. (Among other persons like Rasputin were the epileptic Koliaba who had stumps instead of arms, and "one had to have extremely strong nerves to endure the presence of this imbecile.")

        Alexandra put her full trust in Rasputin after he was able to temporarily "cure" Alexei from his pain. As the years progressed, when rumors of him being a womanizer, heavy drinker, and member of an insanely loose - to put it mildly - cult, Alexandra would hear none of it. It was all "lies," she declared, every inch of it was a lie. Through Rasputin's double acting, she thought that he was being framed.  Enthralled with mysticism, the tsaritsa was an easy target for Rasputin's extraordinary teachings.  Outwardly a very solemn, controlled Victorian woman, Alexandra had an inwardly sensuous nature.   Amazing, even unsettling revelations and outward displays of emotion were not what she had been taught, and she was fascinated with those who did.

        In 1913, Alexandra again faced the problem of publicity. It was the year of the tricentenary, remembering 300 years of Romanov rule. Public appearances could not be avoided. Alexandra reluctantly made the rounds in St. Petersburg, appeared at state functions, et cetera, but with her typically cold, nervous demeanor. Meriel Buchanan, daughter of the English ambassador to Russia, recalled one such instance. It occured in the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, where the Imperial family was obligated to attend Glinka's A Life for the Tsar.

        "Her lovely tragic face was expressionless, almost austere as she stood by her husband's side during the playing of the National Anthem [God Save the Tsar].... Not once did a smile break the immobile sombreness... The Diplomatic Body had been given places all along the first tier and our box happened to be next to the Imperial one, and, sitting so close, we could see that the fan of white eagles' feathers the Empress was holding was trembling convulsively, we could see how a dull, unbecoming flush was stealing over her pallor, could almost hear the belaboured breathing which made the diamonds which covered her bodice rise and fall, flashing and trembling with a thousand uneasy sparks of light."

        Shortly, Alexandra rose, whispered something to Nicholas, and departed. It was as if you could feel the tension in the air, Meriel Buchanan wrote; "men muttered disparagingly under their breath. Was it not always the same story?"

        It wasn't always the Empress's fault.   A modern psychologist would find her character rich in possibilities to analyze.   Chronically depressed, distraught over her son's life-threatening condition, all she wanted was a happy, private family life.  The only way she could manage this was to ignore events and focus on her family.  This way she could have the family she had long dreamed for.

        But she could not brush off politics for long.  In 1914, war broke out with Germany, in what would later be known as World War I. Alexandra immediately plunged herself, along with her friend Anna Viroubova and daughters Olga and Tatiana, into war work. Even though Germany was her country of birth, she was a Russian at heart. She earned her Red Cross uniform and diploma quickly, and worked with a devotion to her task. Anna Viroubova wrote in her memoirs of the Empress's war work:

        "I saw the Empress of the whole of Russia standing at the operating table with a full syringe in her hands, handing the surgeon his instruments and assisting at the most serious operations, taking the amputated extremities from the surgeon's hands, taking off the soldiers' lousy clothes, breathing in the stench and watching the horrors of a military hospital at war-time compared to which an ordinary hospital looks like a peaceful and quiet shelter."

        Unfortunately, in 1916, everything came crashing down on her. The revolutionary Bolsheviks (also called Soviets/Communists), headed by Vladimir Lenin, were rapidly taking over the minds of the people. In December, a crushing blow came. Prince Felix Yusupov, a member of Russia's "parliament," a doctor, and Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, a cousin of the tsar and Alexandra's only friend amongst her royal relatives, murdered Rasputin. Alexandra was heartbroken.  On his advice she had appointed and removed dozens of court ministers.  In her mind, he would help Russia through her crisis - but now he was no more.  Even more terrible for her was the letter he left behind, which she felt sealed her fate.

        "I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for 25 years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for 25 years there will be no nobles in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people...I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family."

        In March of 1917, the largest stone came down. Nicholas abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail, and Mikhail abdicated once and for all. The Romanov dynasty was done. There was to be no more tsar, no more of the life she had once had. For Alexandra, a firm autocrat convinced in the divine right of kings, this was a horrible shattering of her life. Soon after, Nicholas arrived home under arrest by the new Provisional Government (which would shortly collapse in favor of the Bolsheviks). Ironically, the now ex-tsaritsa was arrested in the Alexander Palace wearing her nurse's uniform.

        Alexandra had to bear the weights that were piled on her back after the abdication.  The Imperial family, with many of their friends, were held under house arrest at Tsarksoe Selo.   She busied herself with burning papers, letters, anything that might scent of a German alliance, even though she was wholly innocent.  Little wonder that all the illnesses that had wracked her nervous system came crashing down on her now.  A back problem caused sciatcia, and she remained in a wheelchair most of the time.  Her stress level rose sky-high, her eyesight began to deteriorate, and her heart kept giving her trouble.

        The guards posted at Tsarskoe Selo were anything but kind.  A frustrated Baroness Sophie "Isa" Buxhoevden remembered, "The soldiers always kept close to her, listening to her talk....   They often smoked their vile tobacco straight into her face, or exchanged gross jokes to see their effect."  Once, a young guard approached the blanket upon which Alexandra was seated on the grass. He sat down beside her, and asked her some questions, obviously blaming her for everything that was going on in Russia.  She answered calmly, and when he stood up, he remarked, "You know, Alexandra Feodorovna, I had quite a different idea about you."

        Poor Alexandra hated her imprisonment.   The words of an old peasant staritza years before were beginning to ring true:  "Here is the martyr Empress Alexandra."  The martyr, however, remained true to her Orthodox faith. She wrote to Anna Viroubova in a smuggled letter from Tobolsk:

        "Life here is nothing-- eternity is everything and what we are doing is preparing our souls for the Kingdom of Heaven.   Thus nothing, after all, is terrible, and if they do take everything from us they cannot take our souls...  Have patience, and these days of suffering will end, we shall forget all the anguish and thank God...  I cannot write all that fills my soul... We live here on earth but we are already half gone to the next world."

        In 1918, when Nicholas was leaving Tobolsk and Alexei was ill from an accident, she was faced with an agonizing choice: go with her husband and leave her ill son or stay with her son and abandon Nicholas. Alexei was badly hurt, but then again, Alexandra thought, if Nicholas went off alone the Bolsheviks would be sure to have him sign some paper. She horrified herself with thoughts, until Tatiana came to her rescue and forced her to make a decision. "You cannot go on torturing yourself like this," Tatiana pleaded, and Alexandra decided. "I will go with my husband and share his fate."

        And so, Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria plunged themselves into the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, to be joined by their other four children and four servants.