The decision to deport the Terek Cossacks living in three cantonments (Akk-Yurtovsky, Tarskoi and Sunzhensky) was taken in February 1918 at the first Peasant-Cossack Congress. Disrupted by the changing fortunes of the Civil War their deportation did not resume until 27 March 1920 when the Cossacks with their womenfolk, children and old men set out on foot, guarded by a convoy of armed Bolshevik detachments. Their destination was the railway siding at Dalakovo (today Beslan) where they would be sent on by train to other districts in the North Caucasus.

Eyewitnesses among local inhabitants said there were not enough waggons to take everyone and several thousand Cossacks who remained behind were shot there, near the siding. The exact number executed is unknown, but estimates place the total between 2,000 and 6,000. In the early 1980s when a runway at the Vladikavkaz airport was under construction many human remains were found. In 2001 a kurgan or burial mound was built near the airport at the urging of the Terek Cossacks to which were added a metal commemorative cross and a brick wall. The wall bears a marble memorial plaque which quotes a stanza from “The Cossacks are the Shield of the Fatherland”: The Cossack’s lot is a hard one / only God may judge him. / The years fly by: / We were, we are, and we shall be!

“To the slain innocents of the Terek Cossacks from their grateful descendants.”

In 2013 two pillars carrying information about their mistreatment were added to the memorial composition.