Information provided in 1995 by the Smolensk Region FSK (predecessor of the FSB) indicates that 846 people were shot in Vyazma between 1928 and the end of 1937: the details came from execution reports preserved in the archives. The killings took place in the prison at 9 Mount Dmitrov Street and the bodies were buried in the prison cemetery. Next to the prison is a ravine in which, according to inhabitants of Vyazma, executions and burials also took place. After the war residential accommodation was built over the cemetery. Human remains found when sand was taken from the ravine for building purpose were reburied in the city cemetery, according to the local media.

In February 1993, thanks to the efforts of the Belarus Ministry of Culture and the Vyazemsky district administration, a memorial to Belorussian writer M.I. Goretsky and all victims of political repression was placed at the presumed site of the burials. Engraved on the large stone are the words: “Here among the burials of hundreds of famous and unknown people, victims of political repression, are thought to lie the remains of Maxim Goretsky, the famous Belorussian writer, scholar and teacher.” Later the clergy of Vyazma put up a wooden commemorative cross-golubets next to the Goretsky memorial.