Abstract Soapstone occurs in Finland within Precambrian greenstone belts in the eastern parts of the country. Nunnanlahti and other deposits near Lake Pielinen are the best known and most important of these occurrences. This soft stone is highly workable. Soapstone was one of the most popular ornamental rocks used in architecture of the Jugend (Art Nouveau) style in St Petersburg, Russia, Helsinki, Finland, and in other northern European cities at the end of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries.