Pyotr Stolypin served as a Prime Minister and was Minister of Internal Affairs for the Russian Empire from the year 1906 to the year 1911. Stolypin was what was called a film, er firm monarchist. ( I like film monarchist better but…) Stolypin was famous for his heavy crackdowns and rough treatments of revolutionaries and dissidents. Thousands of suspects were given speedy trials and then promptly executed, giving rise to a hangman’s noose being nicknamed ‘a Stolypin necktie’. Stolypin resigned in March 1911 from the Duma after the failure of a land reform bill that he had introduced. In September of 1911, Stolypin decided to travel to Kiev despite police warnings that an assassination plot involving him was rumored, and this is where the ghosts of his victims and fate had the last laugh. He was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the chest by a fellow named Dmitry Bogrov, who was said to be a leftist revolutionary. This was despite the fact that there were about 90 men employed as guards (they must have been taking a vodka break) It wasn’t the first time an assassination attempt was made on him either. In 1906, three assassins wearing military uniforms bombed a public reception that Stolypin was holding on Aptekarsky Island. I heard the reception was a blast. Stolypin suffered only minor injuries caused by flying splinters, but 28 people were killed. In the last attempt, Stolypin died three days later. Some say this was the first major domino to fall in the downfall of the monarchy six years later. For his trouble, Bogrov modeled a Stolypin necktie ten days later. Oddly, the official investigation ceased without coming to a conclusion and some say this was because the leftists weren’t actually behind it, but that it was conservative monarchists who didn’t like and were afraid of Stolypin’s reforms (you gotta love those conspiracy theories) Most likely, the world will never know the answer to this mystery and the true answer is lost to the pages of history.
