Maria Rasputin - Exile

Exile

Soloviev and Maria escaped first to Bucharest in Romania where Maria was a cabaret dancer. They later emigrated to Paris, where Soloviev worked in an automobile factory and died of tuberculosis in 1926. Maria found work as a governess to support their two young daughters. After Felix Yussupov published his memoir detailing the death of her father, Maria sued Yussupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in a Paris court for damages of $800,000. She condemned both men as murderers and said any decent person would be disgusted by the ferocity of Rasputin's killing. Maria's claim was dismissed. The French court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over a political killing that took place in Russia.

Maria published the first of three memoirs about Rasputin in 1932. It was entitled Rasputin, My Father. She also later co-authored a cookbook, which includes recipes for jellied fish heads and her father's favorite, cod soup. She also worked as a cabaret dancer in Bucharest, Romania, and then found work as a circus performer for Ringling Brothers Circus. During the 1930s she toured Europe and America as a lion tamer, billing herself as "the daughter of the famous mad monk whose feats in Russia astonished the world." She was mauled by a bear in Peru, Indiana, but stayed with the circus until it reached Miami, Florida, where she quit and began work as a riveter in a defense shipyard during World War II. She settled permanently in the United States in 1937 and became a U.S. citizen in 1945. She was married to a man named Gregory Bernadsky in 1940.

Maria worked in defense plants until 1955 when she was forced to retire because of her age. After that, she supported herself by working in hospitals, giving Russian lessons, and babysitting for friends.

Maria claimed to be psychic in 1968 and said Betty Ford had come to her in a dream and smiled. At one point, she said she recognized Anna Anderson as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. A friend called her "Little Mother" because Maria fretted over whether handbags were in reach of strangers in restaurants, open suitcases in hotel rooms, and whether a reporter who was interviewing her had been given a comfortable enough chair. At one point, she had two pet dogs, whom she called Youssou and Pov after Felix Yussupov.

During the last years of her life, she lived near the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles, California, while receiving her Social Security benefits. Maria is buried in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery.