Dmitri's Apothecary

“A fine man and a pillar of the community! Most chemists would charge an arm and a leg for the medicines you need, but Dmitri is always willing to extend credit to the needy. And people repay his kindness by going hack time and again.”

In the heart of Kruiersmuur on the Zoutevis canal is the shop of Dmitri Hrodovsky, a Kislevite apothecary who emigrated to Marienburg about 15 years ago. It occupies the ground floor of a two-storey half-timber building, while the upper floor holds Hrodovsky’s bachelor living quarters. A sign hanging over the door proclaims “D. Hrodovsky, Chemist & Herbalist”, with a picture of a mortar and pestle above it for those who can’t read.

Beyond the leaded glass windows and heavy wooden door, the shop is filled with hanging bundles of herbs and shelf after shelf of glass and clay jars holding a multitude of powders, crystals, fluids and seeds. Precisely labelled in Dmitri’s spider-like script, they have exotic names like “Tincture of Ogre Tears”, or “Powdered Web of Giant Spider”.

Behind the stained wooden counter sits Hrodovsky himself, measuring and grinding and mixing his concoctions. Many of his customers regularly travel quite a distance, forgoing their
local apothecaries to do business with Dmitri.