Departures of note

On the night of 29/30 December 1916, Prince Felix Yusupov lured Grigori Rasputin to his Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg under the pretense of a housewarming party. Along with Grand Duke Dmitri, Vladimir Purishkevich, and two other conspirators, Yusupov served Rasputin tea and cakes laced with potassium cyanide, then shot him when the poison failed to take effect. Rasputin escaped into the courtyard before being shot again and thrown into the icy Little Nevka River. Yusupov published several accounts of the killing, though historians have cast considerable doubt on his version of events; some have suggested he was not the mastermind, while others credit him as the plot's organizer and executor.

Born in 1887 into one of Russia's wealthiest families, Yusupov inherited an immense fortune after his brother Nicholas died in a duel in 1908. As a young man, he led a flamboyant life, cross-dressing to perform as a cabaret soprano and studying at Oxford, where he founded the Russian Club. In 1914, he married Princess Irina Alexandrovna, a niece of Emperor Nicholas II, and the couple had one daughter, Irina Jr. During World War I, Yusupov avoided military service by exploiting a law exempting only sons, a decision that drew criticism from the imperial family.

After the February Revolution and the abdication of Nicholas II, Yusupov and his family fled Russia, eventually settling in Paris. They founded a short-lived couture house, IRFĒ, named after the first letters of their first names, but poor financial management and the Wall Street crash of 1929 forced it to close. In 1932, Yusupov and his wife successfully sued MGM for libel over the film Rasputin and the Empress, which portrayed a character based on Irina as having been seduced by Rasputin; the £25,000 damages award led to the disclaimer now common in American films. Yusupov died in Paris in 1967 and was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.