Prisoners who died in the 1920s and 1930s at the Kem transit point, the mainland division of the Solovki camp, were buried in the woods, 3 kms from the camp. A full list of those buried is not available; individual names are known. After 1939, when Solovki closed as a penal facility, the burial ground was not used, and the graves and headboards fell into disrepair. By the early 1990s only one headboard remained on the grave of R.P. Truby (d. 1928).

In 1995, RIC Memorial (St Petersburg), with the support of the Kem district administration and the Karelian Foundation for Humanitarian Initiatives, a marble plaque was attached to the monument, bearing the following inscription: “Here lie the remains of the inmates of the Solovki special-purpose camp, victims of the political repression of the 1920s and 1930s”. In 2003, thanks to the efforts of the Kem metochion of the Solovki monastery a wooden memorial cross was added with a dedication “To the holy martyrs for the faith and innocent sufferers”. In 2011, a symbolic headboard for M.M. Taube was placed at the foot of the cross.