The Chesel labour settlement was organised in 1930 by dekulakized peasant families, deported from Belarus and the southern parts of Russia. Among them were Catholics, including ethnic Poles. In 1940, Polish citizens deported from the newly annexed western regions of Ukraine and Belarus were sent to Chesel. There were, it seems, two graveyards: an Orthodox burial ground (not discovered) and a Catholic graveyard which lies 500 metres from Chesyel on the high bank of the Luza river. The total numbers of men, women and children buried there have not been established: the names of only ten Polish citizens who died in Chesel are known. In August 1941 the special regime was lifted and the Poles gradually departed.

In the mid-1950s the settlement ceased to exist and both graveyards were abandoned. The burial site was discovered and studied in summer 2007 by an expedition of pupils from the Letskaya secondary school (director V.M. Masaltsev). A wooden Catholic cross has survived on one of the graves with a board bearing the letters “…nski Kazimierz, 1869-1940” in Polish.