The Kriesty special settlement was established in 1933 as a forestry section of the "Dwinolies" enterprise. Initially, families of deported peasants from Ukraine, Belarus and the southern regions of the USSR were settled here. From February 1940, 320 Polish families, deported from the areas of the Second Polish Republic annexed by the USSR in 1939, were placed in this settlement. The status of special settlers was revoked in August 1941 by a decree of the Supreme Council of the USSR on an amnesty for Polish citizens, which meant that Poles were freed from forced settlement, with the result that by 1942 all Polish families had left.

Approximately 70 Poles died during the forced settlement in Kriestach. In 2008. Olga Deryevtsova, a history teacher in the Arkhangelsk region, together with her students cleaned up the cemetery where the Poles were buried. During this work, a cross was placed at the entrance to the cemetery with the names of the Poles engraved on it, received from the local authority. In 2010, thanks to the cooperation of the Polish consulate in St Petersburg and the Council for the Protection of Remembrance of Struggle and Martyrdom, a granite monument was erected here.