In 1941 Soviet Germans, deported from the Volga region, were allocated to the Skopinsky and Miloslavsky districts of the Ryazan Region to work at building sites and the coal mines there. Later foreign POWs were moved here, as were Soviet soldiers who had been captured and held prisoners by the Germans; from 1944 there were also internees from Poland and Germany. These “special settlers” lived near the mines and by the early 1950s, according to some sources, made up to 40% of the local population.

The deportees were buried in individual graves in the village of Pupki. About 50 crosses and memorials commemorating their presence remain there.