From 1944 until the mid-1950s prisoners of Vorkutlag (Rechlag) and free workers at mine No. 29 of the Vorkuta Coal Trust were buried in the cemetery next to Yur-Shor settlement, which is today within the city limits. Burials were made in individual graves and marked with numbered boards. 53 prisoners who died during the camp uprising on 1 August 1953 are buried there: 12 in a common grave, the rest in individual graves.

After the camp was disbanded in 1954 inhabitants of the settlement were buried there. In 1976 the cemetery was closed when the Northern Ring Road was built and burials dating from 1944-1948 were lost. There are 85 graves in the area that remains; one is a common grave. The first memorials appeared in the mid-1950s and were devoted to those who died when the Vorkuta camp uprising was suppressed. In particular, there was a monument to the Estonians (spring 1956). In the early 1960s former political prisoner Kostavicius put up a memorial to all who died during the uprising, a wooden pillar with the year “1953” on its cement foundation.

After 1989 various memorials appeared at the Yur-Shor cemetery: a cross in memory of Ukrainians, victims of Communist terror (1990); a commemorative cross to those who died during the Vorkuta Uprising (1992); a memorial to the Lithuanians and all citizens of Lithuania who died in the Vorkuta camps (1994); a memorial to German prisoners of war and German citizens who died as prisoners of Rechlag (1995); and a memorial to representatives of the Slavic nations who were victims of Stalinist terror (2010). Using archival documents, researchers from the Vorkuta Memorial society have identified the graves of 41 prisoners killed on 1 August 1953 and placed wooden crosses with their names on the graves.