[baby Alexei gurgles] You know what it could be, don't you? Yes.
We'll get the doctor.
The curse.
[Montefiore] Within days of Alexei's birth, the joy that Nicky and Alix feel turned to ashes when it becomes clear, from a bleeding navel, that the child is suffering from hemophilia.
The sufferers bleed from any wound or bruise, internally or externally.
[baby screaming] [Dr Hetherington] Alexandra herself knows exactly what hemophilia means, and this is something that runs in many of the royal families of Europe.
Alexandra's own uncle and brother have died of hemophilia.
[baby screams] - [baby screams] - There's nothing wrong with my son.
[Montefiore] This is a nightmare scenario for Nicky and Alix, or any parent, in fact.
Hemophiliacs died young.
Alexei was quite likely to die before his father, before Nicky.
Medical science couldn't really help them.
What they needed was a miracle.
[footsteps] [door opens] [Dr Antonova] At the moment that Rasputin arrives in Petersburg, it's an incredibly timely moment for the kind of rise he is going to have.
He's not necessarily someone who turns up with an arch-plan right from the very beginning, to go to the top, but he's very good at realizing when something is open to him that will enable him to increase his power and his wealth.
Bishop Germogen.
So you are Grigori Rasputin.
Yes, your Holiness.
My references from Bishop Feofan.
Wait here.
I may have some work for you.
Thank you.
[footsteps recede] [door clicks] [slow footsteps] He will give you a child.
He hears you.
He hears you.
On the road to healing, there's pain.
[baby Alexei cries] [anxiously] You're fine, you're fine [baby coos, cries] [baby cries sharply] How long? [baby cries] This disease is very unpredictable.
He can have years of good health.
And then, one day - [baby cries] - it can turn.
[baby cries] Turn? A nasty knock, a cut a bruise.
- [baby cries] - [doctor] It could kill him.
[baby Alexei crying quietly] [lady's voice on phone] Nicky, darling, please There's rumors that Czarevich is sick.
We understand that you don't want to say anything, but we know someone.
Just say the word.
[Rasputin inhales] [general chatter] When Rasputin first arrives in Petersburg, he's introduced very early on to the so-called Black Princesses.
They're very closely connected to all of high society.
They're also interested in mysticism.
[woman murmurs] From Pokrovskoye, Siberia.
He's arrived in Moscow with excellent references.
The Bishop says he has genuine miraculous powers.
[phone tinkles] You've got to understand that Rasputin's home village is over a thousand miles east of St.
Petersburg.
It's the frontier.
Herds of reindeer.
It's wild.
It couldn't be more different than the social rules of St.
Petersburg.
He's from another world.
Why do you need all this? - All this junk? - [ladies laugh] [chatter continues] Don't be scared.
It's all right.
Don't look at them.
They don't matter.
Look at me.
Mm.
You're like the night cold and dark.
So much grief.
Now the ice has set in.
Your love has nowhere to go, it's It's frozen.
Is it for him? Your husband? No.
No, this is much much deeper.
Isn't it? So fragile and tiny your little girl.
It's okay.
- [woman gasps] - It's not your fault.
[sniffs] Look at me.
[gasps] You saw her suffer, didn't you? And all the love was in vain.
- She's gone.
- [woman sobs] She's gone.
It's not your fault.
You were just a child, too.
Weren't you? [quiet sob] Only a child.
[gasping sob] - [woman sobs] - That's it, that's it.
- Let it out.
- [sobs] - [woman sobs, sighs] - Good.
[Dr Alexandrova] People were starving for that kind of person to come in and tell them what to do with their lives.
It feels like he really understands those he talks to.
It feels like he's a very warm and caring person, and actually, a lot of his advice is really humane.
[Dr Hetherington] He's someone who people talked about, his ability to know exactly what to say to people who are in distress, and in some ways, he's kind of a soothing balm for them, a soothing presence.
What will the people say? They want a strong Czarevich, not an invalid.
[Alix sighing] They'll lose faith in him.
They'll blame us.
No one can find out.
They've already noticed.
We must deny it.
What happens when he gets sick? We'll give him his own bodyguard.
We'll get him the best medical care there is.
We'll tell only those we must.
Those we trust implicitly.
[Dr Hetherington] It's arguably a big mistake that they decide to keep this secret.
What they do by keeping him away from the public eye, is that they seem to be retreating from the Russian people.
For a monarch, to have their heir as a hemophiliac is just a disaster.
And Nicky and Alix reacted by becoming even more paranoid, and the pressure of keeping the secret of Alexei's illness affects the political decisions that Nicky and Alix made for the rest of their reign.
[general] They've bombarded Port Arthur for over two weeks and shattered the Pacific fleet.
The Siberian Army Corps have been forced to retreat.
Now's the time to use a fucking sledgehammer.
[general] The people are desperate for a better life.
They don't need a war.
[Sergei] That's exactly what they need.
Don't let people walk all over you, Nicky.
The Baltic fleet.
Give me numbers.
Forty-two ships.
Twelve thousand sailors.
Nicky this is madness! Send them all.
Don't come to me when it all turns to shit.
[Dr de Orellana] The Baltic fleet is the mainstay of Russia's power in Europe.
If Russia loses this fleet, its standing amongst the great nations of the world collapses.
It's a really, really dangerous moment, and defeat in war is potentially catastrophic for the dynasty.
As Nicholas makes this desperate gamble to win the war with Japan, things are going from bad to worse, outside the walls of the palace.
I mean, in St.
Petersburg, there are protests, there are shortages.
The war is not going well, and the home front is even worse.
People say, "Well, the autocracy and the Czar's ministers are making terrible decisions.
Perhaps, what we need is an actual representative democracy, and then we would have a government that was making better decisions for the Russian Empire.
" [sound of horses' hooves] [sound of carriage wheels] Cannot be leaving this place a second sooner.
Had it up to here with this fucking city.
And the fucking Czar constantly needing his hand held.
Oh, what the hell? [angry crowd shouting] These bloody extremists should be shot.
- [crowd shouts] - All of them! Get a fucking move on! [shouting, banging on carriage] [horse whinnies] "March to The Winter Palace, ninth of January.
We wish our father, the Czar, to deliver us from the evil oppressors, the despotic and irresponsible government, and the capitalist exploiters, crooks, and robbers of Russian people.
" [Dr de Orellana] The Czar, in 1905, doesn't really understand what's happening around the country, and he doesn't understand how pervasive revolutionary ideas can be.
He believes still in the sacred bond between himself and the mass of the Russian peasants.
[Montefiore] The war is going badly, disastrously.
There are strikes in all the big factories.
There is discontent, there is terrorism.
Russia is seething, on the edge of revolution.
[hubbub] [Dr de Orellana] In January, the situation comes to a head in St.
Petersburg.