Solyanka is a large, wooded area adjoining the southern part of modern Kursk. During the Great Terror about 2,000 people, those condemned to death, were executed and buried there.

In 1990 the Kursk Region KGB organised a search party made up of KGB officers and members of the “Verification” (Poverka) youth organisation from Kurchatov. On 1 December that year two mass graves containing 94 bodies were located. The Kursk Region prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation of the remains. Expert examination confirmed that the dead had been shot in 1937-1938. In 1992 the remains of those executed were reburied in a common grave with memorial, a marble pillar that reads: “Here lie the remains of the rehabilitated victims of political repression who were shot in 1937-1938”.

The memorial was created at the suggestion of the Kursk regional association in memory of the Victims of Political Repression, the regional KGB, the prosecutor’s office, the regional Internal Affairs department, city and regional authorities and the “Verification” centre. The Kursk City Administration funded its construction. In 1995 it was given the status of a newly-found site of cultural heritage. Subsequently the nuns of the Holy Trinity nunnery erected commemorative crosses opposite the memorial. Relatives of the executed Father Vasily Pinayev placed a personal memorial nearby. At different times all of these memorials were subject to repeated acts of vandalism.