You're reading: Kholodnyi Yar uprising documentary short being filmed in Ukraine

A dozen young men dressed in different Ukrainian military uniforms from the first half of the 20th century gather around a small fire in the woods. Their rifles rest in a corner of the glade nearby. Three of them start constructing a shelter from willow branches while another leads a black horse to the camp.

“There
should have been more horses,” says Galyna Hymych, the director of a short
documentary about the Kholodnyi Yar uprising that took place in central Ukraine
in the early 20th century carried out by bands of Ukrainian
partisans who resisted the Bolshevik occupation and eventual takeover of their
country. The uprising is known for being the longest and bloodiest among all
uprisings of its time. The wooded area is actually set in Holosiivskyi Park in
Kyiv and the men are members of a historical reconstruction club.  The horse’s name is Zarok, it is already 24
years old and seems tired of all the acting.

Zarok
actually belongs to the Ukrainian National Agriculture University. “Let’s say
he volunteered,” laughs Zarok’s caretaker Antonina Taradaiko. The university loaned
the horse free of charge to the film crew.

The
documentary is slated to be 15 minutes long and consists mostly of interviews
with surviving witnesses who were children during the uprising, including the
children of those who were present. But today the crew is shooting one of a few
action scenes that will make it into the final cut.

The movie
will be distributed among Ukrainian schools, says Oksana Levkova, director of Ne
Bud Baiduzhym (don’t be indifferent), a civic group that promotes Ukrainian
history, culture and language, which is responsible for the filming.

“After ‘Chornyi Voron’ (a famous work of fiction
about Holodnyi Yar written by Vasyl Shklyar) many young Ukrainians became
interested in that historical period, but not school children,” she explains,
adding that history for teenagers is still a boring school subject.

The budget
for the movie is small. “We got a couple of mid-sized businesses to sponsor us
and that’s it,” Levkova says. “We mostly spent this money for moving around the
country and feeding those who participate in the shooting process. Some (money)
is also reserved for distribution needs,” she explains, adding that sponsors
don’t want their names to be disclosed, including the entire movie budget.

Dyvaky, the
production studio in charge of the technical side of the project, the actual
filming, is enthusiastic about the project.

“Our (Ukrainian)
history is exciting, children will love it,” Hymych says.

Dyvaky has
previously made a couple of TV shows and documentary movies, she said, “but
this is the first one with a horse and guns and all that.”

The main
battle scene is still ahead and much is still to be done before it is shot.
“Hey check to be sure there is no modern trash in the scene,” Hymych shouts.

A young man
in a vintage military outfit walks Zarok, the black horse, down the hill to the
camp again, while the others build the make-shift shelter. The military men, or
rather the Kholodnyi Yar rebels, come from the Insurgent Kyiv historic
reconstruction club.

“We are the
only ones who have authentic uniforms of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that Kholodnyi Yar rebels would wear,” says Vladyslav Kutsenko, the club’s leader.
“We order the clothes from Belarus, the only right clothes in the whole former
USSR,” he says proudly. The guns are also pretty much what Kholodnyi Yar rebels
would use, “the only difference is you know – we shoot blanks,” Kutsenko
laughs.

A bigger
challenge than finding historically accurate uniforms, though, is finding surviving
witnesses from the famous uprising.

“Those
people die every year and those who are still alive are still afraid to talk,”
Hymych says recalling a trip to Cherkasy Oblast to meet with a survivor.  His team managed to find one teacher that
agreed to talk at a cemetery and one daughter of a Kholodnyi Yar rebel.

“Believe it
or not, but those people still think that the KGB can come for them at any
minute,” she says.

Kyiv Post staff writer
Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected].