The future starets was born in 1 872 in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoe, near Tobolsk, just beyond the Urals. His father, Efim, was a farmer and a horse dealer. The family, like many peasant families in Russia, had no surname; eventually Gregory adopted the legal name Novyk. “Rasputin” was a nickname given him as a young man by his neighbors. It means “the dissolute,” and there is every reason to suppose that it was well earned. From earliest adolescence Rasputin manifested exceptionally strong sexual urges and powers.
