Welcome to Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Menki.

Smoke filled the air.

They rose from the fires of war.

Russia was struggling with Japan for the eastern edge of the empire, but Nicholas mostly left

that to his officers.

Not that it didn't keep him fretting, but at the same time there were signs that the

people of Russia weren't completely in line with his divine plan at home.

Here strikes and protests were rising up around the empire, and that included right there

in the capital.

Some among the aristocracy placed that purely at Nicholas's feet.

For instance, even his cousins said that the turmoil rolling over the country was all

about his lack of will.

Maybe he was daydreaming about the days under the rule of the last czar.

Maybe he was daydreaming about the throne himself.

But either way, it would have been foolish.

He must have forgotten the way Nicholas's grandfather died, shredded by a bomb in the

streets of the capital in the seventh attempt on his life.

But let's be honest, no stronger commitment to authoritarian rule by any single Romanov

could have stemmed the rising tide.

Revolution was a many-headed hydra.

It just kept coming back.

Under Nicholas' unrest was not the exception, either.

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