The memorial cemetery of the “Norilsk Golgotha” is part of the former burial ground of Norillag where prisoners bodies were interred between 1935 and 1956. The numbers buried there are unknown; there are no lists of names.

After 1953 it became the town cemetery. Closed in 1987, some of the burials were transferred by relatives to the new cemetery. The remaining graves, headboards and railings were destroyed and exposed remains were carted away. Much of the territory was used for industrial construction.              

In 1989, thanks to the efforts of the Norilsk Memorial Society and the Norilsk Industrial Museum, the human remains in the destroyed cemetery were gathered together and in 1990 they were reburied in a common grave crowned with a wooden cross. It was then, at the suggestion of the Norilsk Industrial Museum and the Norilsk Memorial Society, that the town administration decided to create the “Norilsk Golgotha” memorial complex on the remaining territory of the cemetery. The memorial was created, thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts in Norilsk, the Baltic States and Poland with the support of the city administration, the Norilsk Nickel mining company and the public organisation “For the Defence of Victims of Political Repression”.

At the entrance to the complex stands a wooden bell tower (2001). Nearby is a granite pillar (2004) with the inscription: “Here at Mount Schmidt is Norilsk’s first cemetery. Tens of thousands of Norillag prisoners, from the USSR and other countries, who died or were executed were buried here between 1935 and 1956”. Within the memorial area there is an Orthodox chapel dedicated to the Pure and Life-giving Cross of our Lord (1990), a variety of personal memorials to prisoners from the Baltic States (1991), a memorial to the Polish prisoners of Norillag (1996, rebuilt in 2001), a monument to the camp’s Jewish prisoners (2005) and a memorial “The last gates” (2005).