Home PARTNER STORIES PARTNER NEWS Tallinn’s Raeapteek celebrating its 600th anniversary

Tallinn’s Raeapteek celebrating its 600th anniversary

One of Europe’s oldest pharmacies turns 600

Apr 15, 2022

tallinn_pharmacy — Photo Credit: Tiit Aunaste

The oldest town council pharmacy in Europe

Raeapteek, the oldest town council pharmacy in Europe and the oldest continuously operating medical institution in Estonia, is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year.

The Raeapteek (Town Hall Pharmacy) is known to be the oldest pharmacy in Europe still operating on the same premises. The pharmacy was first mentioned in the Town Hall notebook in 1422. From the years 1582 to 1911, the pharmacy belonged to the ten generations of the Burchart family. It was so famous in its day that the Russian tsar used to order medicines from here.

The Raeapteek is also considered to be the oldest still operating company in Tallinn and the oldest health care institution in Estonia. In medieval Tallinn, The Raeapteek was also the meeting place of the town lords and other important people. Here people drank claret and made agreements. Today, the pharmacy still sells famous claret and marzipan, once considered to be the cure for heartache, but also has all the modern medications. A small museum room offers an interesting display of 17th-20th century medicinal bric-a-brac. Raeapteek also offers guided tours and workshops.

Selling rhino horn powder

Aside from medicinal drugs, Raeapteek once sold paper, ink, jewels, spices, sealing wax and even gunpowder.

Sailors who sought help for their health problems, in turn quite often brought all sorts of novelty items for sale to the pharmacy. In medieval times, patients could buy mummy juice – a powder made of oversea mummies mixed with liquid. If that wasn’t enough, one could treat their ailing health with burnt hedgehogs’ powder, bat powder, snakeskin potion and rhino horn powder. Various herbs and spirits were distilled on the spot.

Food was also on display – such as candies, cookies, preserves, marzipan and jellied peel. When tobacco was brought to Europe and eventually to Estonia, the pharmacy was the first to sell it. One could even find a glass of claret – a locally sugared and spiced Rhine wine. Some of these historical products are still sold at the pharmacy.

“To this day, you can still buy the famous claret, which was made and sold at the pharmacy as early as 1467. You can also buy marzipan, which has a beneficial effect on the brain but is also known as a remedy for a broken heart. Marzipan was originally sold in pharmacies as a medicine. In the heyday of the Hanseatic League, marzipan from Reval was one of the most famous marzipans in northern Europe,” Birgitta Laanmets, the manager of the pharmacy’s museum, said.

“But there are now other exciting Raeapteek products, such as juniper berries, herbal tinctures, tea blends, bath salts and rue. We also sell herbal-themed playing cards and a board game suitable for the whole family; the games are also translated into English,” she says.

“You can buy medicines from us as you would from any other pharmacy, but ours still has that old-fashioned atmosphere and ambience that gives visitors a different experience. In the museum room, you can see a variety of pharmacy equipment, as well as some of the symbols of medieval pharmacies, such as the crocodile under the ceiling and the coloured containers on the window,” Laanmets notes.

A crocodile under the ceiling

Today, the Raeapteek combines its functioning pharmacy with a museum. Visitors to the museum can also examine a number of strange ingredients that were used for making drugs hundreds of years ago: prepared wolf guts, rabbit ears, earthworms in oil, burnt bees, viper fat, dried toads, swallow nests, dog faeces, billy goat blood, spirit with rough woodlice, frogspawn band-aids, stallion hooves, burnt hedgehogs and fresh chicken eggshells.

The Raeapteek’s anniversary will be celebrated throughout the year with special events. The Raeapteek’s anniversary will be celebrated throughout the year with special events. What’s more, the pharmacy’s museum organises guided tours and various workshops, such as making herbal salt in which juniper berries are added to the salt along with medicinal plants. “Historically, Estonians believed that juniper contained nine doctors and that juniper smoke warded off evil spirits,” Laanmets says.

“The marzipan workshop is also popular with the children, where, among other things, the famous marzipan legend is told, according to which this confection was first invented in Raeapteek,” she adds.

To mark the jubilee, a special book with a comprehensive overview of the history of Raeapteek has been published in April. The book is published in Estonian but has an English summary as well as photographs with English captions. An international postage stamp, “Raeapteek 600” is also available.

Apart from being the oldest active pharmacy in Europe that has been continuously operating on the same premises, Raeapteek also holds a distinction as the oldest company in Estonia that has worked continuously on the same premises.

To learn more about this unique venue, click here.