The capital of the Belbaltlag camp complex (1931-1941) was located in Medvezhegorsk. It is not known when the wooded area now called Sandarmokh became a killing field for Belbaltlag prisoners or whether it was the only such execution site in the Medvezhegorsk district. Executions somewhere in the area are confirmed in archival documents. Inhabitants of Karelia, forced settlers, and prisoners were all shot here during the Great Terror. Historians believe that a considerable proportion of those executed in Karelia were shot at Sandarmokh. A transport of 1,111 prisoners from the Solovki special prison were also brought to the clearing and shot there between 27 October and 4 November 1937.

Many years spent searching for this “lost transport” led to the discovery of the killing field at Sandarmokh on 1 July 1997 by a joint expedition of the Petersburg and Petrozavodsk Memorial. With the support of the district administration, they found 150 grave pits, measuring 4x4 metres, two of which were opened in the presence of a representative of the Medvezhegorsk district prosecutor’s office. Indirect estimates indicate that up to 4,500 bodies were buried in these pits – many more than those of the lost transport from Solovki.

After further investigation, and an assessment by the prosecutor’s office, the Memorial society proposed that a memorial cemetery be created on the site, and this suggestion was supported by the Karelian government and the Medvezhegorsk district administration. In that same year, an asphalt road was laid to the area and a wooden Orthodox chapel dedicated to St George was erected there. The cemetery was formally opened on 27 October 1997. Since then over 400 individual grave markers have been placed on the graves; Orthodox and Catholic crosses have been erected there; a plaque commemorating the executed Solovki prisoners; and more than thirty ethno-confessional memorials.

Since 1998 the memorial complex has marked International Days of Remembrance each year on 5 August, attended by people from Karelia, other parts of Russia and delegations from Ukraine, Poland and elsewhere, as well as members of the diplomatic corps.