Rhodonite is mined in Australia, Sweden, Brazil, the USA (Massachusetts), and also in Russia, in the Ural Mountains. In Russia, rhodonite was found in the middle of the XVIII century near the village of Maloe Sidelnikovo which is not far from Ekaterinburg. Local people named it “Orletz” which means “The eagle stone” in Russian. There is a legend that explains to us the meaning of this name. It says that shortly after rhodonite was discovered people noticed that great eagles which inhabited the Ural Mountains carried small pieces of rhodonite in their claws and put them into their nestles. People of the Urals started then to follow eagle’s example and put pieces of rhodonite into their baby’s cradles, in order to make babies grow as strong as mountain eagles.
Sadly enough, the deposit in Maloe Sidelnikovo, which once was a rich source of the highest quality rhodonite, is now exhausted. What is left to us now is just some occasional lots which were kept by people since the time the mine had worked.