Shouldn't we go to the pharmacy?

We go to the pharmacy when we do not care about the world around us, we want to get help as soon as possible. Few people pay attention to the interior, the queue and the price are becoming the main topics for observation. But there are several pharmacies in St. Petersburg, where you can just go to look as if it were a museum. I decided to visit one of these pharmacies this time. I will not buy any serious drugs, I will limit myself to buying delicious and healthy vitamins.

All these antique medicine cabinets, wooden display cases, counters and benches along the wall have been preserved in this pharmacy since the 19th century. The owners of the premises have changed several times In more than a hundred years, but the pharmacy has always worked here. It is difficult to say when the first pharmacy was set up in this building, but it is known that Oskar Pel bought the Friedlander Pharmacy, which already existed in the building, in 1899.

Oskar Vasilievich Pel was the son of the founder of the pharmacy dynasty Vasily (Wilhelm) Pel. For reasons unknown to me, the pharmacies of this particular chain were very lucky. Pel's main pharmacy, located on the Vasilievsky Island, is also very well preserved.

This pharmacy has another rare feature. It is located on the second floor of an ordinary apartment building and it has no separate entrance from the street. Now stores should have a separate entrance. When the first floors of residential buildings are not enough, just build a separate shopping mall. But in the 19th century shops, pharmacies, workshops, restaurants, pubs and other similar establishments could occupy two or three first floors of buildings on busy streets, residential apartments started higher. I suppose it might not have been very pleasant to go up the stairs past the workshops or canteens to your home.

I want to show you what profitable houses looked like, if the first floors were occupied by shops, workshops and catering companies. I found the pictures of the house near this pharmacy, Kazanskaya Street, 1902:

Source

I suggest we go back up the stairs to the pharmacy and take some color pictures. I like black and white better, they look more epoch-matching, but the coloured ones are more informative.

Some pharmacies on the second floors of the buildings continued to operate in the 20th century. I can remember three more such pharmacies: the Pel Pharmacy on the Vasilievsky Island, the Turgenev Square pharmacy and the Anichkov Pharmacy on Nevsky Prospekt. The last two pharmacies were closed in the early 21st century.

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Camera	Pentax K-r
Lens	Zenitar-K MC 16mm f/2.8 Fish-Eye
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia