Kholodnyi Yar is a territory in the very centre of Ukraine - historically, a borderland between forest and steppe, a space between settled life and nomadic routes, between what was considered "civilisation" and the Wild Field.
Kholodnyi Yar has repeatedly been at the heart of Ukrainians' struggle for freedom and the right to decide its own fate. In the early 20th century, armed resistance to Russia's imperial ambitions continued here for years. The insurgents of Kholodnyi Yar did not surrender even when most of the country had already come under Soviet control.
For a long time, the history of Kholodnyi Yar remained marginalised or distorted. Soviet authorities reduced this struggle to local "banditry," while the names of those who took part in the uprisings and their actions were discredited or deliberately erased from public memory.
In this article, we have collected key facts about Kholodnyi Yar - facts worth knowing and sharing. We explain why this territory repeatedly became a point of resistance to imperial power and why understanding these facts is crucial to understanding Ukraine's long historical path toward independence.
Kholodnyi Yar is a forested area in the Cherkasy Oblast. Its landscape consists of deep ravines, dense woodland and numerous sources of drinking water. Such terrain shaped not only the everyday lives of local residents but also a constant need for security and defence. For people living in these villages, protecting their land was not an exception, it was part of daily life and nature strongly supported it.
At the same time, this position on the border between forest and steppe meant that danger could emerge at any moment. Under such conditions, a particular type of person emerged: the farmer-warrior, not a professional soldier but a peasant who worked the land while also knowing how to defend it, and was ready to take up arms.
Resistance in Kholodnyi Yar did not arise out of nowhere and was not imposed from outside; it grew directly out of the way people lived and the landscape itself.
Life in Kholodnyi Yar lasted for thousands of years. Archaeological finds and the numerous burial mounds scattered across the area testify that this was not an empty or "wild" land, but a populated and strategically important territory.
During the Early Iron Age, this area functioned as the centre of a large regional agglomeration that included one of the largest fortified settlements on the Right Bank of what is now Ukraine.
The burial mounds in the Kholodnyi Yar area served not only ritual purposes. They were also used as observation points and as elements of a signalling system: from their elevated embankments, it was easier to detect enemy movements and warn nearby settlements.
Researchers have repeatedly found small bronze plates, mirror-like objects, on the mounds' territory. They reflected sunlight and could have been used to transmit signals over long distances.
The uprisings of the 18th century were not spontaneous outbreaks of violence or expressions of "anarchy." They should be understood as a response to long-term and systemic pressure (social, religious, and cultural) that deprived the local Ukrainian population of rights, security, and the ability to choose their own way of life.
Eventually, the insurgent movement was suppressed with the active involvement of the Russian Empire. Empress Catherine II viewed these uprisings as a dangerous precedent that could spread to territories already under Russian control.
In the early 20th century, during the Ukrainian Revolution, Kholodnyi Yar became one of the centres of armed resistance. Insurgent units operated here, rejecting both the restoration of imperial control and the establishment of Soviet power.
The organisation of life and defence was based on traditional Cossack principles, with decisions made collectively.
Due to the difficult terrain, the local population's long experience of self-defence, and the support of surrounding villages, Soviet authorities were unable to establish control, officials sent to "restore order" repeatedly encountered organised resistance.
The Kholodnyi Yar movement was not the work of isolated armed groups cut off from society, its foundation was the local community itself: peasants, families and even entire villages. People provided food, shelter, information and direct support to the insurgents.
Villagers lived under constant raids and repression, so for many, surrender did not mean a return to peaceful life, it meant repression, deportation, the destruction of communities and punishment simply for participation in or support of the resistance. In this context, resistance was not a romantic choice but a way of survival.
For approximately five years, this territory remained a space of armed resistance to Soviet power - a phenomenon that is difficult to find parallels for, both in Ukraine and beyond its borders. Eventually, the uprising was crushed, and its participants and their families were brutally punished.
Resistance in Kholodnyi Yar had not only a military system but also a carefully organised everyday dimension. Insurgents used dugouts, underground shelters and camouflaged forest hideouts - so-called "underground Sich."
These underground shelters served several functions at once: they were used for hiding, treating the wounded, storing supplies, maintaining communication between units and planning further actions. They were not temporary shelters for a few days - they became places of long-term habitation under constant danger.
These were not simple trenches, but large concealed bases, sometimes spacious enough to shelter horses. They included interconnected rooms, hidden passages and defensive firing positions that allowed fighters to move unnoticed and maintain a circular line of defence. Unfortunately, most of these structures have not survived. After the suppression of the uprising, Russian forces destroyed the shelters to erase material traces of Ukrainian resistance.
Researchers have recorded the memories of a doctor's daughter, who recalled how armed men came to their home at night and asked her father to perform an urgent operation on a wounded insurgent commander. The doctor was transported to Kholodnyi Yar blindfolded, and the operation was performed in forest conditions, with limited equipment and even without anaesthesia.
This testimony shows that secrecy was a systemic part of the resistance, but preserving the lives of insurgents and civilians, both, remained a priority.
According to the doctor, the dugout where the insurgents were based did not resemble a temporary hideout but a space adapted for living: dozens of people could stay there at once, sometimes without leaving it for several days.
In the Soviet narrative, the struggle in Kholodnyi Yar was usually referred to as the "Kholodnyi Yar Republic." This term was not neutral, it served a clear function: to present a long-lasting, organised resistance movement as a local episode of the civil war, limited in time and space.
The use of the word "republic" made it easier to fit the Kholodnyi Yar movement into a familiar Soviet ideological framework, as just one of many short-lived "self-proclaimed" entities, rather than a part of a broader struggle for Ukrainian statehood that continued for years after World War I.
Historians emphasise that the term "Kholodnyi Yar Republic" is a Soviet construct. It was used to artificially mimic the USSR's model and to diminish the significance of Ukrainian resistance.
In local residents' memories recorded by researchers, Russian and Bolshevik forces are not portrayed as a "new government," but rather as punitive units. People recalled systematic looting, violence and brutal punishment of civilians. This experience largely explains why the residents of Kholodnyi Yar could not simply "surrender" and continued to support the resistance.
In oral memory, these units were often called the "take-and-tear army" - a reference to mass requisitions, violent seizures of property and complete absence of rules. Soldiers moved in large columns, followed by convoys of wagons loaded with food, clothing and household goods. Refusal to hand over anything often ended in beatings or death.
People recalled that these punitive units were not composed solely of ethnic Russians, soldiers from other regions and peoples, recruited by the Russian army, were also present. Locals could not always determine their origin and simply referred to them as "outsiders" - people with no connection to local communities.
Today, Kholodnyi Yar is not only a collection of historical dates and episodes, but a pantheon of Ukrainian heroes from different eras. Traces of ancient tribes, Cossack and Haidamak uprisings, the 20th-century Kholodnyi Yar movement and today's war for Ukraine's freedom all intersect here.
Most memorials, restored graves and monuments in Kholodnyi Yar have emerged through civic initiative. Local residents, historians, activists, and volunteers spent years searching for burial sites, installing memorial markers and returning from oblivion the names that Soviet authorities had hidden or defiled.
For more on contemporary initiatives, researchers, and activists working today to revive the memory of Kholodnyi Yar, we recommend reading Kholodnyi Yar: Land Where Ukraine's Resistance Never Ended.
This article was made possible thanks to the stories and long-term work of people who research, preserve and tell the history of Kholodnyi Yar. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to this material and continues this work daily, including:
Thanks to modern initiatives and dedicated individuals, Kholodnyi Yar remains not only a place of history but a space of living memory, one that shapes our understanding of the past and our responsibility for the future.
