In the 1930s and 1940s, forced settlers were relocated in Slobodchikovo village and in the surrounding forestry areas – the families of dekulakized peasants from Belorussia, Ukraine and Volga Germans. The men, women and children who died there were buried in the forest sections to which they were attached. In March 1940, 231 deported Poles arrived in the district. By autumn 1941, according to the Karta centre in Warsaw, 16 of the Poles had died.

The forest graveyards disappeared. In autumn 2013, a joint Russian-Polish youth expedition erected a commemorative cross at the entrance to the Slobodchikovo village graveyard. The attached text reads, in Russian and Polish, “In memory of the Polish special settlers, forcibly deported to Slobodchikovo village in the early 1940s, who here suffered all the horror of political exile. From the youth of Poland and Russia, September 2013”.