Anastasia was very energetic, but she was often sick. She had "hallux valgus" (bunions), which hurt both of her big toes. Anastasia also had a weak muscle in her back. Because of this, she had to be massaged twice every week. She disliked this, and when it was time to be massaged, she would hide under her bed or in cupboards. Anastasia's older sister, Maria, is said to have hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils. The doctor performing the operation was so shocked that Maria's mother, Tsarina Alexandra, had to order him to continue. Olga Alexandrovna said all four of her nieces bled more than was normal. She believed they had the hemophilia gene, like their mother. Some carriers of the gene are not hemophiliacs themselves, but they can have signs of hemophilia, like bleeding more than most people. DNA testing on the remains of the royal family proved in 2009 that Alexei suffered from Hemophilia B. His mother and one of his sisters were carriers. The Russians thought this sister was Maria, and Americans thought it was Anastasia. If Anastasia had lived, she could have passed on the disease to her children. Anastasia, like everyone else in her family, loved "Baby" Tsarevich Alexei very much. Alexei often had attacks of hemophilia and nearly died several times.
Her mother trusted Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering "holy man". She thought his prayers had saved her son when he was sick many times. Anastasia and her sisters were told to treat Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to tell him their secrets. In the autumn of 1907, Anastasia's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia went to the nursery with the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Anastasia, her sisters and brother Alexei were all wearing their long white nightgowns.
"All the children seemed to like him," Olga Alexandrovna said later. "They were completely at ease (comfortable) with him." Rasputin's friendship with the Imperial children can be seen in some of the messages he sent to them. In February 1909, Rasputin sent them a telegram, saying, "Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework."
But in 1910, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva told other people in the family that Rasputin was allowed to see the four girls when they were wearing their nightgowns. Rasputin's visits to the children were completely innocent, but the family was shocked and angry. Tyutcheva told Nicholas's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, that Rasputin visited and talked to the girls while they were getting ready for bed, and hugged and patted them. Tyutcheva said the children did not talk about Rasputin with her and kept his visits a secret. Tatiana wrote to her mother on 8 March 1910, that she was "so afr(aid) that S.I. (governess Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva) can our friend something bad". Xenia wrote on 15 March 1910 that she did not understand "the attitude (behavior) of Alix and the children to that sinister Grigory". Nicholas asked Rasputin not to go into the nursery after that, and Alexandra later fired Tyutcheva.
In the spring of 1910, Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, a royal governess, said that Rasputin had raped her. The empress did not believe her, saying that "everything Rasputin does is holy". Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that they had made an investigation to see if what Vishnyakova said was true, but that "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was kept from seeing Rasputin after she claimed that he raped her. She was fired in 1913.
But rumors still spread. People suggested that Rasputin had seduced the Tsarina and her four daughters. Rasputin had written warm, but completely innocent letters to the Tsarina and her four daughters. He released the letters, which made people gossip even more. "My dear, precious, only friend," wrote Anastasia. "How much I should like to see you again. You appeared to me today in a dream. I am always asking Mama when you will think of you always, my dear, because you are so good to me ..."
Soon after, pornographic cartoons were printed about Rasputin having relations with the Empress, her four daughters and Anna Vyrubovna. After the scandal, Nicholas asked Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time. Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine. Alexandra was very angry at this. However, though the rumors continued, the imperial family continued to be friendly with Rasputin until he was murdered on 17 December 1916. "Our Friend is so contented (happy) with our girlies, souls have much developed," Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on December 6, 1916.
Later, A.A. Mordvinov reported in his memoirs that the four Grand Duchesses looked "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death. He added that they sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa on the night they heard he was killed. Mordvinov remembered that they were sad and seemed to feel the beginning of great political troubles. Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on the back by Anastasia, her mother and her sisters. Anastasia went to his funeral on December 21, 1916. Her family planned to build a church over Rasputin's grave. After they were killed by the Bolsheviks, it was discovered Anastasia and her sisters were all wearing amulets with Rasputin's picture and a prayer on it.
During World War I Anastasia and her sister Maria visited hurt soldiers at a hospital at Tsarskoye Selo. Because they were too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and older sisters, they played checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to make them happy instead. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital, remembered that Anastasia had a "laugh like a squirrel", and walked quickly "as though she "tripped" along."
In February 1917, Nicholas II resigned from the throne. Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. As the Bolsheviks came nearer, Alexander Kerensky moved them to Tobolsk, Siberia. The Bolsheviks grew more and more powerful. Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House (House of Special Purpose), at Yekaterinburg.
Anastasia felt sad about her captivity. "Goodby," she wrote to a friend in the winter of 1917. "Don't forget us." At Tobolsk, she wrote a sad theme for her English teacher, filled with spelling mistakes, about "Evelyn Hope", a poem by Robert Browning about a young girl. "When she died she was only sixteen years old," Anastasia wrote. "Ther(e) was a man who loved her without having seen her but (k)new her very well. And she he(a)rd of him also. He never could tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. But still he thought that when he and she will live [their] next life whenever it will be that ..."