On 8 October 1941, as part of the operation to evacuate prisoners from Leningrad prisons, about 2,500 prisoners were taken by rail to the Lake Ladoga station, and then sent on foot to the wharf in the Morye village.

There they were loaded into the hold of a barge. Due to a storm their voyage lasted more than five days. They reached Volkhov on 15 October and were sent towards Tomsk in west Siberia. Those who died on the barge were unloaded onto the bank of the River Says and buried by home guard fighters from the local pulp and paper mill. No indication of the site of the burial was given. An official investigation undertaken in the early 1960s suggested that 400 had died on board the barge.

In 1989-1991 the burial was partially uncovered. The Sovest (conscience) exploratory group from the town of Syastroi, led by Alexei Vashkurov, set out to find the remains and rebury them. On 22 and 23 June 1991 the remains of about two hundred bodies were reburied. A cross of stainless steel (not extant) was erected on the site of the reburial; then a metal obelisk was placed there, replaced in 2007 by a wooden cross.