“Yahidne. A Village in Captivity”: an audio guide to a war-crime site presented in Chernihiv region

On March 3 in Yahidne, Chernihiv region, the audio guide “Yahidne. A Village in Captivity” was presented. It was created by the Public Interest Journalism Lab to mark the fourth anniversary of the village’s occupation.

On this day in 2022, Russian troops forced 368 residents — almost the entire village — into the basement of the local school. Among them were elderly people, children, and infants. They were held there for a month as a human shield, as the Russians set up their headquarters in the school. In the cramped basement, without proper conditions, ten people died.

The audio guide invites listeners to walk through the school grounds and its basement and hear testimonies from those who survived the occupation. The English version is narrated by American historian Timothy Snyder. The residents’ testimonies in English were read by prominent journalists and authors Anne Applebaum, Peter Pomerantsev, Sabra Ayres, Jonathan Littell, historian Marci Shore, and former Canadian politician Chrystia Freeland.

The guide is available in Ukrainian and English on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Near the school, where a museum is currently under construction, banners with QR codes have been installed so visitors can find the audio guide — and Yahidne continues to be visited by foreign delegations and tourists.

The Lab’s team has been working in Yahidne since April 2022. The journalists were among the first to document residents’ testimonies immediately after Chernihiv region was liberated. Based on these accounts, a documentary film was later released, along with a report in the U.S. magazine TIME in its centennial anniversary issue. The village’s story also became part of the book “The Worst Days of My Life,” which chronicles the first year of the full-scale war.

In the summer of 2024, the Lab held a meeting with the community to discuss how residents would like to preserve the memory of what they endured. During the conversation, it was noted that Yahidne’s story should speak not only about the crime, but also about the experience of coexistence in captivity, mutual support, and self-organization.

The audio guide was produced as part of work supporting local memorialization initiatives, with support from the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine Program.