#Matryona Rasputina

[otmaaromanovas]

As mentioned by the wonderful @foreverinthepagesofhistory, there exists an anecdote about Tatiana Nikolaevna's wig falling off in 1913 and her running to hide from everyone out of embarrassment. This comes from the book 'Four Sisters' by Helen Rappaport:

"One day, when she was playing a skipping game in the park with Maria Rasputin and some young officers from the Corps de Pages, Alexey’s dog had run up to her barking; Tatiana got her foot caught in the rope, tripped and as she fell ‘her hair suddenly tumbled down and, to our amazement, we saw a wig drop off’, Maria recalled. Poor Tatiana ‘revealed to our eyes and those of the two embarrassed officers, the top of her head where a few short, sparse hairs were just beginning to grow’. She was absolutely mortified, and ‘with one bound she was on her feet, had picked up her wig and dashed towards the nearest clump of trees. We saw only her blushes and vexation and she did not appear again that day.’"

Rappaport references Matryona 'Maria' Rasputina's book 'Real Rasputin' here. I unfortunately cannot find this version of her memoirs anywhere online (I think she wrote about three, and 'Real Rasputin' was her first), so I sadly can't check the actual quote for any more information.

If I'm being entirely honest, I don't know how much I believe this. Neither Olga nor Maria Nikolaevna's diaries from 1913 ever mention Rasputin's children Matyrona (Maria), Dmitri, or Varvara visiting them for fun and games, though they do talk about sometimes being in their company.

'After dinner [I] played, at Papa's request, religious things [music] and everyone went to Anya's where Father Grigori's entire family was present: Paraskovia, Feod[orovna], Mitya, Matryona, and Varya... and Zhenya.' - Olga's diary, Christmas day 1916

It's also important to note that Maria believed in Anna Anderson for a time, and a common criticism for those who supported her claim was that they didn't actually know the family well at all, so she might have put this anecdote in her book to try and combat this. Knowing that Tatiana wore a wig might have added to this supposed closeness she was trying to convince readers of.

Her memoirs have been questioned time and time again as to how accurate they actually are - she tries to paint her father, Grigori Rasputin, as having been framed for the downfall of tsarism, and she believes him entirely innocent of the various allegations against him. There are more inconsistencies. For example, in her memoirs she writes degradingly about Felix Yusupov (who was involved in the murder of her father), then named her two dogs 'Youssou' and 'Pov' after him... Also, the cover of her memoirs are quite funny, it reminds me of a bad film poster lol, but that is besides the point.

Also, Tatiana's album has photos of her posing on the Standart and on the beach with her wig off, which might suggest she was at least a little comfortable showing her shaved head to some people, like her favourite officers. When OTMA had their heads shaved in 1917, they also posed for various photographs and found it funny, not embarrassing - but it could be argued that was because they were going through it together, rather than Tatiana being the 'odd one out'.

Personally, I also don't enjoy 'Four Sisters'. Helen Rappaport sadly put quite a few misconceptions and outright lies into her books, so her quoting from a very unreliable source doesn't surprise me sadly.

I also want to add that despite being a little harsh here about her memoirs, Maria Rasputina was a fascinating woman. She actually worked as a lion tamer in a circus for a few years, and there's a video of her doing this which you can see here. She ended up being mauled by a bear whilst working for the circus, but continued working with the company and advertising herself as the performing 'daughter of the mad monk'. She also claimed she was psychic and held seances. She needs her own book about her!