Ruskeala Mountain Park is a man-made creation site not far from Sortavala, built around a once-abandoned marble mine. It was opened in 2005, but just a few years ago it became a popular place for a one-day visit. Here is quite an interesting story about Ruskeala Park.
The story began on White Mountain. The Swedes were the first to notice it in the 17th century. They were the first to start mining marble there and this was continued for 200 more years. In 1768, the marble quarry was already a part of Russia. The Empress Catherine the Great issued an order to mine the marble on White Mountain for St. Petersburg buildings. She liked the rock samples that the stonemason Andrey Pilyugin showed her. According to her decree, the “White Nights” marble, as Catherine called it, was delivered to the banks of the river Neva. A lot of freelance workers from the Urals and Olonets came to Ruskeala to make some money. It was amazing for its time, but the workers were actually paid a salary, no forced labor or exiles.
The mine worked non-stop for a full year. The workers drilled wells, filled them with gunpowder and blew them up. After that, they manually broke the huge blocks into smaller pieces with wedges weighing from 2 to 12 tons. They placed these pieces onto sleds pulled by up to 130 horses, and carried the marble along the winter path near Sortavala. Those marble pieces, which were nicknamed “wild boars”, were stored at the port of the village of Khilyulya until spring. With the beginning of the sailing season, galliots came from St. Petersburg through Ladoga Lake and took the marble. In St. Petersburg, the marble was cut into facade tiles.
St. Isaac's Church was the first to be decorated. It was designed by Antonio Rinaldi, and then during the reign of Emperor Paul, it was dismantled. Later the tiles of Ruskeala marble were used to decorate St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Michael's Castle, and the Marble Palace, and the floors in Kazan Cathedral, the window sills of the Winter Palace and the Roman fountains in Petrodvorets (Peterhof). For over a hundred years, the quarry worked only for the needs of St. Petersburg. When the city was completely “dressed” in marble, orders suddenly decreased, and for more than 40 years Ruskeala Mine was stagnant.
At the end of the 19th century, in 1895, the mine started working at full capacity again. This time the Finns ruled Ruskeala. But they were interested only in white, sugar-like calcite marble, which they used to produce lime powder. By the beginning of the 20th century, lime powder was the main bonding material for stone constructions; it was also needed for paper production. Finnish workers switched to underground mining of marble, they literally “gnawed away” inner layers of calcite from the depths of the White Mountain. So there they built vertical adits, grottoes and underground halls. Two of them, located in the horizontal tunnel (dry horizon), are still walkable today, and sometimes concerts take place there. They say classical music has the best acoustics there.
The Finns were turning solid rock into powder. So they built kilns in the Ruskeala area, where they “baked” calcite marble. The mining trolleys delivered marble directly from the shaft to the kilns, where the calcite was loosened. The company was doing quite well: the last kiln was built right before World War II in 1938. The furnaces worked for a long time — exactly 100 years and survived several chccanges of state borders during that time. So, built in The Grand Duchy of Finland, they completed their work on the territory of modern Russia — in 1995. Only four out of the nine furnaces survived, but in pretty poor condition.
But let's go back to the quarry. The length of a large quarry from south to north is about 456 meters; its width from side to side is a bit more than 100 meters at its widest point. The depth of the quarry from the top to the bottom is 50 meters. We can’t see most of the stone hollow anymore, it is hidden by water. Depths range from 5–6 meters in the southern part to 40 meters in the northern part. Even before that, water was a pretty big problem for the workers: the deeper they dug the quarry, the more groundwater there was.
Until the 1950s, it was pumped out, but then the Ruskeala Marble plant, which operated there at that time, had to close. All extraction stopped and the quarry gradually filled with clean and clear water. In good weather, you can easily see objects at a depth of 16 meters as if they were at arm's length. The water in the quarry is cool all year round — only 3–4 °C. Even in summer, divers have to use drysuits in order to inspect the flooded halls, where there are a lot of crucians, old equipment and trolleys at the bottom.
There are 11 large and small quarries on White Mountain; three of them are flooded. The three most interesting routes are in Ruskeala Park near the quarries: “Marble Canyon” is 1,600 meters long; “The Road of Stonemasons” is 2,600 meters long, including a visit to the Italian quarry and the mountain sinkhole called “The Kingdom of the Snow Queen”; and “Underground Ruskeala” is 850 meters long.
Three semi-flooded and beautifully backlit tunnels have opened for visits recently. But it is possible to visit just one of the halls; most of the giant underground mountain system, which spreads for many kilometers, is flooded. It’s pretty chilly underground, the temperature never rises above +5 °C, well, it's reasonable when 15-meter layer of rock is right above. But don’t worry — you can get warm jackets and helmets at the entrance. The signs along the route will prevent you from getting lost in the shafts, just be attentive. Anyway, it is not possible to go deeper — Ruskeala underground tours are supervised. The green water and stone columns are backlit. In winter, when it is mostly dark in Karelia, the ice and huge icicles look magical in the artificial light.
At the end of the 20th century, to be precise, in 1970, Leningrad suddenly remembered the beauty of Ruskeala marble. Facade tiles were needed to decorate metro stations. But this time it was decided not to blow up the quarry, but to cut it with wire saws. Italian equipment was brought to the Ruskeala mine, and the quarry quickly got the nickname “Italian”. During the next 10 years, that marble was used to decorate the Ladoga and Primorsky stations in Leningrad, one of the pavilions of VDNKh Exhibition Center and the Hotel Ukraine in Moscow, all the elements of one of the monuments in Kyiv… There are about 500 addresses in the Soviet Union where this marble was used.
There are just a few people who read “the Kalevala, the national epic”, but everybody has heard about this ancient book and knows the main characters. In a small park, there are labyrinths and observation decks, on one of which you can see the statue of “The Old Woman Louhi” — the Lady of Pohjola, the Lady of the Foggy Northern Lands who hid the Sampo mill. You wouldn’t guess, of course, that the Sampo mill, like Aladdin’s lamp or the Golden Fish, makes all wishes come true for a person — like gold, grain and money. Visitors often try to have their fortune told with the Kalevala, asking questions and requesting a page and line number, and then an answer from the book is read for them.
Other paid activities in 2026 include a 40-minute boat trip for up to four people — 2,200 rubles, a 30-minute water-platform trip — 600 rubles per person, a transfer to the Akhinkoski waterfalls — 250 rubles per person, ATV rides from 8,000 rubles for two people, zip-line — 3,000 rubles per person, rope jump — 4,000 rubles per person, diving — 9,000 rubles per person, giant swing — 2,000 rubles per person, water activities on Lake Svetloye from 500 rubles, and an audio guide for 500 rubles.
The Ruskeala Express runs daily between Sortavala and Ruskeala Mountain Park. The current timetable should be checked before the trip, as there are several connected departures. In the 2026 schedule published by the train project, train 921/922 leaves Sortavala at 10:50 and arrives at Ruskeala Mountain Park at 12:05, then returns from the park at 17:00. Train 925/926 leaves Sortavala at 10:05 and arrives at the park at 11:15, with the return departure from Ruskeala at 18:40. From St. Petersburg, the official park website suggests taking a train from Finland Station to Sortavala, then continuing to Ruskeala by bus, taxi or retro train.
By car from St. Petersburg, the park is about 310 km away; the official route goes via the Ring Road, Priozersk, the A-121 road, Sortavala and Ruskeala.
The Four Seasons of Russia project is supported by the Russian Geographical Society www.rgo.ru
The route to Ruskeala is recommended by the Russian Geographical Society.
More reading about Karelia:
Karelia: Locations and Lifehacks
Valaam "Holy Island"
Kizhi "One Day in the Last Century"
Translation: Irina Romanova, Instagram: @astrabella1
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