Rasputin's daughter

Maria Rasputin with a picture of her father
(click any image to enlarge)

Grigori Rasputin, the infamous Mad Monk of Tsar Nicholas II's court, started as a preacher in Siberia. He gained a reputation as a holy man and eventually made his way to St Petersburg where he caught the eye of the Tsarina Alexandra. Because she believed that Rasputin had healed her sickly son Alexei, he became a favorite of hers and soon moved into the court. Rasputin had a wife, two daughters and a son. They moved into the court as well, and the children were tutored in social graces and became friends with the Tsar's children.

By 1915 things were not going well for the Russians in WWI. Rasputin, who was a drunkard and a womanizer along with being a charlatan, was unpopular and blamed for discrediting the royal family. In 1916 a group of conspirators shot and killed Rasputin (the stories that he was also poisoned and tossed still alive into an icy river are almost certainly embellishments). 

His family continued to live in the court until the October Revolution of 1916. At that point the Tsarina gave them some money and suggested that they flee from Russia. Only Maria, the eldest daughter, escaped to Europe. Her mother and brother disappeared into Russian labor camps and her sister died of mysterious circumstances in St. Petersburg.

Maria first returned to her home in Siberia where she married Boris Soloviev. The two of them led a fugitive existence in Russia until they fled to Europe where they travelled from city to city as refugees. They finally settled in Paris where Boris worked in a soap factory, as a night porter, and as a car washer. They had two daughters.   

In 1926 Boris died and Maria was left alone with her two daughters. She made ends meet by working as a maid and a companion to a wealthy fellow Russian expat woman. She then, because of her father's notorious name, got an offer to be a cabaret dancer in Bucharest. I think her act may have involved dramatizing her father's lunatic reputation, which could not have been pleasant for her. Still, she spent several years dancing in Europe. She also published her first book, The Real Rasputin, about her father.

She then moved on to, of all things, being an animal trainer in a travelling circus. She published a second book at this time. In 1935 while working with Ringling Bothers Circus she went to the United States. She was a successful draw. From Atlas Obscuras post The Many Lives of Maria Rasputin, Daughter of the 'Mad Monk':

Americans were unsurprisingly fascinated by Maria, and papers across the country carried pictures of her with captions like, “European wild animal trainer and self-declared daughter of Russia’s ‘mad monk’ tries to hypnotize a circus elephant in Philadelphia.” She was also featured along with other Ringling Brothers stars on the back of a Wheaties box, extolling the cereal as “the breakfast of champions.”

Maria formally immigrated to the U.S. in 1937. After being mauled by a bear she quit the circus, got married and settled in Los Angeles. The marriage did not last. To support herself she became a machinist in a shipyard, becoming one of America's wartime Rosie the Riveters. 

When she retired from the shipyards, she supported herself with Social Security and the occasional babysitting jobs and interviews. She also published her final book Rasputin: The Man Behind the Myth. She died in 1977.

Altogether a remarkable life: from a Siberian village to the Russian imperial palace, on the run from the red army, cabaret dancing in Europe's capitals, animal training acts in circuses, a machinist in the U.S., and an eventual peaceful retirement. She certainly didn't lead a dull life.