Rasputin & Ferdinand

[R.H. van Gent]

> We are currently producing a documentary for Channel 4 about Rasputin.
> The director has a theory that he would like to put in the film. On
> June 27th 1914 Frans Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo, which ultimately
> started the First World War. On that same day Rasputin was stabbed in
> Tyumen in Russia. His theory is that these two events happened around
> the same time across different time zones. The shooting in Sarajevo
> happened at 12 noon.

Dear Joanne Kneafsey,

What are your primary sources for the date and the hour of Rasputin's
stabbing? They do not sound very reliable to me.

According to a quick search on the internet, Rasputin was stabbed (not
fatally, that happened two years later) in Pokrovskoye, the village of
his birth. He was hospitalized in Tyumen and was operated on by a
physician who was specially sent from St. Petersburg.

If the shooting of Franz Ferdinand occurred at noon in Sarajevo, this
was equivalent with 11h 00m GMT (UT), as Serbia followed Central
European Time since 1884. 

Finding out how late that was in Pokrovskoye, is more tricky. I doubt
whether zonal time was already adopted in those regions (my sources
indicate that this were first introduced in 1931), it seems more likely
that used mean local time. 

I cannot find Pokrovskoye in my atlas but assuming that it lies close to
Tyumen (65.5 degrees East), local time there would be running about 4
hours and 22 minutes ahead of GMT (UT). The shooting of Franz Ferdinand
would then have occurred around 15h 22m local time (say close to half
past three in the afternoon).

Your only problem is now finding a source confirming this time according
to a Pokrovskoye clock. 

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