[The Russian pharmaceutical branch in 1990s. Report 1. From the Soviet to the market]

The article opens series of publications devoted to the history of occurrence of pharmaceutical market in Russia. The specifics of medication supply system in the Soviet period, circumstances of its deconstruction in early 1990s and modes of overcoming medication scarcity in 1993-1994 are considered. The authors compared publicly available digital data of 1990s documenting state of pharmaceutical branch, with testimonies of pharmaceutical market participants, their speculations on its state and conceptions about its normativity. This kind of methodological approach permitted to discover latent incentives and hidden obstacles in the history of Russian Pharma and to discern asymmetries of infrastructural development.