Miners Pharmacy

Kristine Fredrick, WOIS School 58, Rochester City School District

Tuesday July 21, we went to the Miner's Pharmacy Museum. This is the oldest museum in Barnaul and also the 1st pharmacy in Barnaul and all of Siberia. Remember, this was a mining town. We had a costumed tour guide and a new interpreter who lead us through the beautifully reconstructed rooms.

In the first room we were introduced to the founders of the pharmacy, the building's history, and some folklore about the place.

In 1752, a one story building was built. In 1793 a flood, due to a broken factory dam, ruined that building. In 1794, a new building was built.

The photo below shows that the new structure is designed in the Russian classicist style.

The bottle collection below shows bottles all found during reconstruction in 2010-12. My friend John Kelly has a large bottle collection and will really like this.

Frederick August Wilhelmovich Gebler is a famous doctor, herbalist and scientist who worked here. Our docent shared a romantic version of how he came to Siberia.

Gebler was in the army near Germany. He left the army for the love of a German woman, but her parents protested because they were Lutheran and Gebler was Orthodox. They fled together to Moscow, but could not marry there either. So they went to Siberia and married here.

The non romantic version sounds like this: he just tired of work as doctor in the army and left.

In the same room, many books are on display. There was very little medicine at the time and the diseases were killing many. 1860's pharmacy science was studied here, many books were released. The texts include many recipes for medicines used at the time. During WWII, this pharmacy supplied medicine and supplies for the war.

Some famous visitors are connected to this pharmacy. One legend, I think, explains that the cellar is haunted by Dostoyevsky. Perhaps because he went to the cellar when he visited and saw light and had a very precious vision. I'm pretty sure he was on opiates (medical use). Another version says that in 1857, Dostoyevsky lived here while visiting because he became ill.

From the first room, we are lead upstairs to a reconstruction of a 19th century pharmacy lab. Here, all their medicines were made from natural herbs and ingredients. Ingredients were dried, and made into pills. The docent explained that from herbs and distillations, they made powders, and added a paste substance, and it became like a pastry rolled to strips and then to tablets. The pills were powdered to keep them from sticking together, and salted to preserve them, and kept in jars. You can see some of the tools here for pressing and storing pills.

Toothpaste and brush from pig lard and salted and horsetail. Many health items were sold at the pharmacy.

Other items made here were purgatives from salt and lemon citric acid.

There was a bottle of snake wine: beheaded, gutted snake placed in wine and used for treatment of something I hope I never get.

We were allowed to smell Garlic wine made recently from an authentic recipe.

Jars for herbs, medicines, for mixing.

The scale in the lab is very sensitive, down to one dram.

Back downstairs, In the third room of the historic building, hangs a wood home pharmacy kit. Along another wall there is a 19th century pharmacy counter with a scale and a period German cash register. People could buy herbs, medicine, and Medical equipment was also sold: scissors, rinser, pierced, syringes, artificial leeches. There was such a thing there to see. One legend says that Mozart, Rafael and Washington died of blood letting. After viewing the three historic rooms, we had a great treat.

The front room of the building was set up for a tea tasting of natural teas from the Altai taiga.

Teas and balsams are made from all natural ingredients of the Altai region. We were served tea, jam and honey. It became a swarm of eating, drinking and pouring for several minutes until it appeared the locusts had passed through.

The jam is sea buckthorn, strong in Keratin, and honey from this region. These all improve immunity.

The balsam is from this pharmacy. It is made of thorn apple, mint, bergenia (badan), motherwort (pustyrnik). The Balsam's flavor is thick, syrupy, sweet, no alcohol flavor, smoky, and fruity like smoked plums.

The hosts were very generous with us. We spent some time in their shop, which looks much like the health and beauty section of my natural food co-op, Abundance Cooperative Market, in Rochester. Healthy ideas always make me feel at home.