Kharkiv’s oldest pharmacy opened in 1869 as part of the Alexandrovskaya Hospital, and until recently it was located within the first inpatient ward of the 1st Clinical Hospital, which was situated at Blagovischenska Street, 25.

Following the failed assassination attempt on Alexander II in Paris in 1867, the people of Kharkiv decided to commemorate the tsar’s narrow escape by building a hospital for the poorest members of the community.

To fund the hospital, a mandatory annual insurance fee of 50 kopecks was collected from all merchants, factory workers, domestic servants, and cab drivers. They were entitled to free hospital care, unlike the rest of Kharkiv’s residents.

It is worth noting that the city consistently provided donations to support the hospital, and wealthy residents of Kharkiv also regularly made charitable contributions. A new building was constructed for the hospital in 1869, located on the site where the Institute for Noble Young Ladies had stood until the 1840s. The building’s walls have survived to this day, though they have been overgrown with numerous additions, and the facade has been covered with tiles. Previously, a small chapel stood in front of the entrance. During the Soviet era, the Alexandrovskaya Hospital became Clinical Hospital No. 1.

Unfortunately, the facades of both the pharmacy and the hospital have been significantly modernized, but they are no longer in use. In the late 2010s, the former hospital was renovated to serve as an Administrative Services Center, which was never actually opened.