Located 30 kilometres from the capital, it was built in 2000 on the initiative of the first President of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev in memory of the victims of the repressions in the village by Soviet authorities.

[2][3] The killings remained largely covered up by the Committee for State Security of the Kyrgyz SSR until the site was rediscovered in 1991 and its caretaker (who had been sworn to secrecy by the KGB) revealed the location of the grave to his daughter following the dissolution of the USSR.

[4] The bodies were then dug up and collectively interred at Ata Beyit 9 years later in the presence of President Akayev, other Kyrgyz/foreign dignitaries, and relatives of the dead.

During the Days of History and Commemoration of Ancestors holiday on November 7–8, a procession to the memorial is held where the President of Kyrgyzstan lays a wreath to honour the victims.

[7][8] In 2016, a monument to the 1916 Urkun was installed in the cemetery in a shape of a horizontal sculpture of a Tunduk ("Тундук") with a circular apex a traditional yurt.