The Yusupov Palace is also known for the brutal murder in December 1916 of the monk Grigori Rasputin, defined at the time as "the dark soul" of Tsar Nicholas II. Years later, Prince Felix Yusupov, the head of the conspirators, explained that in order to kill Rasputin, they first tried to poison him, then shot him, beat him and finally threw him into the icy Malaya Nevka River, where the monk finally died of hypothermia.
