Historical story

Khioniya Guseva, the Noseless Woman Who Attempted to Kill Rasputin

June 29, 1914:Khioniya Guseva stabs Rasputin in the street

The close bond established by Rasputin with the most important members of the Russian imperial family, it made him disliked by many, who could not stand that a bizarre, almost illiterate Siberian monk had achieved a position of such prestige and power.

On 29 June 1914 , in the town of Pokrovskoe, a woman with her face hidden by a veil approached the starets, of her who, believing her to be a beggar, immediately put her hands in her pockets to take a coin, but found herself instead pierced in the belly by a deep knife cut.

The screams of Rasputin, seriously injured, alarmed those present, who immediately stopped the woman.

Khioniya Guseva

The failed assassin was called Khioniya Guseva and the most evident physical peculiarity of her was the total absence of the nose , lost, according to her, due to an adverse reaction to a medication at the age of 13, although the newspapers wrote that it was instead a consequence of syphilis, very widespread disease at the time; the young woman, who considered Rasputin a pervert, claimed to have acted alone, but the investigators did not believe her.

Who could have been behind the attack?

Although the enemies of the starets now they were no longer counted, almost certainly, in this case, Khionia's hand was armed by the powerful monk Iliodor , of which, needless to say, she was a fervent follower.

Indeed years later, now in exile after falling out of favor with the Tsar, Iliodor, in an autobiographical book, admitted his responsibilities.

As for Khioniya and Rasputin, the first was locked up in an asylum because she was judged to be deranged, while the extravagant mystic, after undergoing surgery at the Tiumen hospital, recovered very well.