According to the version of RAS corresponding member and toponymist Irma Mullonen, the names of Karelia ending with -la conceal a personal or family name of a person who once founded the village or lived in it. The name Ruskiye/Ruskie in Karelian means "red"; it was also used to refer to red-haired people, which gave rise to the nickname. Thus, the name of the volost center Ruskeala means "the place of residence of the Ruskea family."

Located near the settlement of Ruskeala, 30 kilometers north of the city of Sortavala, on the bank of the Tokhmayoki River. The length of the quarry from north to south is 460 meters, the width up to 100 meters. The distance from the highest point of the quarry edge to its bottom is over 50 meters. Water transparency reaches 15–18 meters.

The quarries, discovered by pastor and local historian, member of the Free Economic Society Samuil Alopeus, began to be developed in 1765, at the beginning of Catherine II's reign. The first developments were led by "stone crafts apprentice" Andrey Pilyugin, who was consulted by Italian specialists. Five quarries were laid at the deposit, where marble of four colors was extracted by drilling and placing gunpowder charges — ash-gray, gray-green, white with gray veins, and white-blue-gray. Up to 500 local people were employed in stone extraction.

Ruskeala marble was used in the construction of significant buildings in Saint Petersburg and its palace suburbs. It was used to clad St. Isaac's Cathedral (Auguste Montferrand personally visited the quarries to select suitable stone), the floors of the Kazan Cathedral were laid, windowsills of the Hermitage were made, the windows of the Marble Palace and the facade of the Mikhailovsky Castle were framed, and in the second half of the 20th century — the underground halls of the Saint Petersburg metro stations "Primorskaya" and "Ladozhskaya." Architect Auguste Montferrand repeatedly visited the marble quarries during the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral from 1818 to 1858.

In 1846, after the construction of a water-powered saw and grinding plant and the organization of lime production from marble fragments, the number of workers employed in quarrying reached 800 people. In 1859, the French writer Alexandre Dumas visited the site, which he recounted in his four-volume work "Travel Impressions. In Russia." What the famous writer wrote:

“So, dear readers, about thirty versts from Serdobol (Sortavala) are the marble quarries of Ruskeala, which were strongly recommended to me to visit and which I was doomed to visit under the threat of ruining my trip to Finland. I have often admitted my biases, and therefore I must also admit what causes me dislike; namely, during travels I do not like to visit mines, factories, and quarries. However, there was no arguing: as already mentioned, I was doomed to see the Ruskeala quarries, because it was mainly there that the stone was extracted from which St. Isaac's Cathedral was built. So we got a cart, a kind of torture device used in Russia as a means of transportation. Finally, we arrived at the postal station. Incidentally, only in Russia can you find these station houses, identical in appearance, where only the most necessary is kept, but you can always be sure it will be there: two pine benches painted to look like oak, and four pine stools of the same color. I forgot to mention another essential item of the setting, an item of the highest national degree — always a lit samovar. All this is provided to you free of charge: you have the right to it, since you are traveling by mail and, therefore, are a state person. But do not expect anything else, namely food: that is out of the question. If you want to eat — bring your own food; if you want a bed — bring your own mattress. Soon, about two hundred steps ahead, appeared a hill of dazzling whiteness, conical in shape; the entire hill consists of marble chips, and if you look at it from afar, you could swear it is a large pile of snow. We bypassed the sparkling white hill and came out onto a spacious square, which was filled with huge cubic marble blocks prepared for shipment. Italian quarry. Here all mining work was supervised by Italian masters. I began to ponder by what means of transportation these huge blocks could be delivered to the lake shore, since it was obvious that they could only be transported to Saint Petersburg by water. Unable to satisfactorily answer this question, I dared to ask it aloud; the station master, who wished to become our guide, told me that for their transportation they wait for winter, when a sled path is established. The blocks are so heavy that they have to be lifted with jacks and levers, then loaded onto sleds and transported on sleds to large sailing vessels that take them to Saint Petersburg. Looking at all this with rather moderate interest, I suddenly discovered that there was almost no one else around me: the last of my companions, behind whom I could not recognize him, was about to hide in some burrow dug at the foot of the hill of marble chips. A tour of the caves and adits is a must. This passage was formed — which I did not notice at first — by a vertical excavation and led inside the rock. Having gone there and walked about fifteen meters along a narrow corridor, I found myself in a huge rectangular hall, whose walls were about forty feet high and about a hundred feet wide. It was completely empty. Its walls were white as snow. Three kilometers from the quarry where white marble is extracted, there is another quarry where green marble is extracted. Our station master was eager to take us there and praised the second quarry as something most unusual in the world. We made a friendly agreement: I gave him full control of my companions, and I myself set out to return to Serdobol and have lunch. During this short walk, I established one fact: all Russians in Finland drink tea, all Finns drink coffee.”

From 1939 to 1947, the quarry was inactive. Production at the marble-lime plant resumed in 1947 and operated until the early 1990s. Marble was extracted in blocks in small quantities, as well as marble for the production of lime, decorative chips, lime flour, and crushed stone of various fractions.

The walls of the old quarry are penetrated by a whole system of underground workings — adits and drifts connected by vertical shafts. Most of the workings were flooded after the Great Patriotic War; pumping out the water is not possible. The total length of the mining workings is several kilometers. The building of the plant administration, made of small marble blocks, and part of the lime kilns have been preserved.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruskeala_(Mountain_Park)

Alexandre Dumas “Travel Impressions. In Russia”