During the years of Soviet terror those condemned to death for political offences were shot in the village of Maima (now within Gorno-Altaisk city limits) not far from the Shuisky Highway, and their bodies buried in the village graveyard. According to local researchers, in the 1930s-1950s more than 700 local inhabitants of the Maiminsky district were arrested and over two hundred of them were executed.

The old cemetery has existed since 1810 and was closed in 1962. Thereafter, no one took care of the cemetery; cattle grazed there and then houses were built all around, encroaching on the territory of the old cemetery.

V.P. Shiyan of the town Memorial Society proposed that a monument be erected to the victims of political repression. Early in 2005 meetings were held in local villages and that year a national grant was received to mark the 60th anniversary of Victory in the War (1941-1945). The public were involved and the idea then extended to the suggestion of a Park. The “Russian Party of Life” gathered two million roubles towards the cost and contributions were also made by private individuals including the inhabitants of Maima, and by a number of other organisations. Work began on the park in July 2005 (its designers were A.S. Karamshin and G.V. Dureyev) and the project received wide coverage on the Altai Republic’s TV channels. Officials, villagers and the relatives and families of the victims were all in attendance at the official opening.

The names of more than 200 inhabitants of Maima from Books of Remembrance were engraved on granite pillars and the central part bears plaques inscribed with the words, “In memory of the victims of political repression in the Maima district”, “May we never forget, and be forced to relive this past”. A monument to inhabitants of Maima who have died in wars since 1945 also forms part of the memorial, as does an Orthodox chapel of the Assumption, consecrated in 2006. It was then that trees were planted around the perimeter of the square (which is 1.43 hectares in area).