Press releases

14 May 2026

Historian reveals rosehip’s role as strategic secret in medieval Belarus

MINSK, 14 May (BelTA) - In the Middle Ages, Belarus had at least 40 pharmacies that prepared medicines, and rosehip was the most closely guarded ingredient and was exported only as fruit, Chairman of the Commission on Education, Culture and Science of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Igor Marzalyuk said in the BelTA’s project True History. Lectures by Igor Marzalyuk.

Pharmacy craft was very important and respected in Belarus, and the places where medicines were prepared met high standards. “According to researchers, there were at least 40 pharmacies in Belarus in the 16th‑18th centuries. That is quite significant. They were all in cities. The equipment in Belarusian pharmacies was no worse than that in other European pharmacies of the time. It fully complied with the European standards that existed at that time. According to written sources that have survived and been studied, we know that an average pharmacy had between 500 and 870 pieces of utensils and instruments. These included distillation flasks, scales, simple Turkish jugs, glass vessels, jars, pans, bottles, flasks, boxes and so on. Most medicinal preparations in Belarusian pharmacies, as in Europe at the time, were prepared by heating medicinal plants in a water‑filled retort over an open flame and collecting the distilled products. The export of medicines was always very popular. The export of medicines from Belarusian pharmacies to Russia was a very profitable business already in the 15th‑16th centuries,” the historian said.

One medicinal plant grew only on Belarusian soil. It was protected, and its seedlings were never exported. “We had a miracle shrub growing on Belarusian soil. It was plentiful in so‑called medical gardens, a miracle shrub that did not exist in Moscow. That miracle shrub is rosehip, which is now so widespread. It grew on Belarusian lands but was not found in Moscow. Our clever compatriots exported rosehip fruit, used as medicine, to Moscow, but did not sell the seedlings,” Igor Marzalyuk emphasized. “Among the prohibited goods that could not be exported, goods of strategic importance, national security, from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the rosehip was banned to export.”

Nevertheless, this strategically important plant was secretly smuggled out to Moscow. “The service (I don’t know what to call it, but by modern standards, the Russian foreign intelligence service) developed an entire operation that was carried out in 1639. In 1639, Russian Lieutenant Alekseyev was sent to Mogilev with a secret mission to ‘obtain and bring with roots the overseas svaroborinnik (meaning rosehip), needed for medicines’. So an entire operation was developed. And they had to escape using secret smuggling routes, not simply go through customs, not through the toll gate. They worked out a plan to retreat,” Igor Marzalyuk said.