A closer look

Ruling Russia was so brutally stressful that the Emperor supposedly chose to be a homeless forest wizard instead. In 1825, Tsar Alexander I died very suddenly of typhus, leading to massive conspiracies that he had swapped bodies with a dead soldier. Years later, a highly educated wandering holy man named Feodor appeared in Siberia, looking exactly like the Tsar. Honestly, preferring a cold Siberian cave over Russian politics is an incredibly valid choice.