HOUDINI, RUSSIA, 1913

From "Variety & Circus," 1913

This is a ticket for a Houdini performance in Moscow in May, 1913! We stumbled over it while surfing an obscure Russian magic website. 

It reads, in part: "Three World-famous attractions: HOUDINI, Ponak, Pantzer. In the Outdoor Theater, Brilliant Fireworks…."

(We've already written about Houdini's previous acquaintance, in Moscow, with Ernest Pantzer, then a famed vaudeville acrobat.)

Is this an artifact of a second trip to Russia, a decade after the first one in 1903, long speculated-on but never proven -- nor disproven? This alleged trip has generated only tantalizing nuggets of "information:"

-- Orson Welles' fantastic story,"from Houdini himself," on Harry's ringing the Kremlin bells in the presence of Nicholas, Alexandra and Rasputin. 

-- Houdini's lifelong friend Joe Rinn's account of Harry's being solicited by the Russian nobility to undercut Rasputin.

Houdini could have been one of the richest men in the world if he had been willing to pose as having supernatural powers. During his engagement in Russia, at the time the faker Rasputin controlled the Imperial family through the Empress, the nobility offered him a fortune if he would displace Rasputin with the Empress by pretending that he performed his feats through supernatural aid.

                                                    -- from Sixty Years of Psychical Research

We'd like to hear from the experts out there: what do you know about this ticket? About Rinn's explicit statement that Harry was playing Russia while Rasputin was in power?

At this time, 1912-1913, Rasputin was at his weakest, having fallen afoul of powerful nobles, a vengeful press and even a period of banishment by the Tsar himself. Harry in 1912-13 was at the height of his powers and fame. He performed in England in May, 1913 which would have allowed time to make a quick sail on a private yacht for a semi-clandestine trip to Russia. Or he could have gone late in the previous year, 1912. 

Next week, more evidence of this trip, which, would indeed have enabled Houdini to have confronted Rasputin, and to have rung the Kremlin bells.




RELATED:

HOUDINI & ORSON WELLES

HOUDINI IN MOSCOW