When Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution. Maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia's peasants...

Recounts the life of Rasputin, the controversial figure who so influenced the Russian court of Nicholas and Alexandra that he brought about his own assassination.