A drugstore of old times Chişinău (end of 19th – beginning of 20th centuries)

The research and valorization of the collection of postcards from the heritage of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova suggests new themes and subjects from the history of 19th - beginning of 20th century Bessarabia. The investigations from archives and the press of the time, the blanched images, with documentary support, are becoming an informative source charged with authenticity. As starting point of the article served a heritage postcard dated with the beginning of 20th century, „baptized” by postcards lovers „Pautânschi's drugstore”. It is a white and black picture postcard, issued in Moscow at the renowned publishing house Şerer, Nabgolţ & K, in circulation from 1912. It represents the image of a skittish building, placed on Armenească str. Corner with Alexandrovskaia (today bd. Ştefan cel Mare and şi Sfânt corner with Armenească str., near the specialized store „Franzeluţa”). It is a baroque building, built in 1894 which belonged to Maximilian Pautânschi, a prosperous businessman from Basarabia, based in Chişinău in 1851. The drugstore is rented starting with 1899 by Osip Babici at an annual price of 2500 rubles, and from 1917 Şimşon Kogan becomes the owner of the drugstore, one of the holder of a drugstore network from the region. Maximilian Pautânschi's entrepreneur activity in pharmaceutics had been continued by one of his sons, Mihail, well-known scientist of winery, who had owned a private drugstore (1907-1910) and the daughter Constanţa-Regina, who in 1901, with the financial support of her father, acquires a drugstore on Haralampievsk street corner with Pavlovsk (today Alexandru cel Bun street corner Petru Rareş).