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The Russian military forcibly evicted the residents of Yagodny from their homes and drove them into the basement of the local school. About 400 people lived in the terrible crush, with virtually no food or water. Among them were children and even babies. There was no ventilation, toilet and no possibility to prepare food in the rooms. Slept sitting. Several people died.
Today, the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers publishes photos of Daniel Pavlov, taken after the release of Yagodny. He has been a member of the association since 2022.
30 Days in Occupation
In the village of Yahydne in the Chernihiv region, Russian troops stayed for a month. They entered there practically from the first days of the full-scale war — March 3. The houses along the road to Chernihiv were not damaged, but in the center of the village some houses were completely destroyed. Before the occupation, Russian troops shelled Yagodne with artillery. Near the local house of culture, from which the outer walls now remain, the Russians made an ammunition depot.
The Russian military searched local residents for patriotic tattoos, military uniforms and took away mobile phones. People were evicted from their homes and forcibly driven into the basement of a local school. Almost four hundred people lived in a terrible crush, with virtually no food or water. Among them were children and even babies. There was no ventilation, toilet and no possibility to prepare food in the rooms. We had to sleep sitting, because an average of half a square meter was allocated for each inhabitant. Because of such living conditions, ten people died in the basement. The military was not allowed to bury the dead, so they were put up in the school boiler room. The Russians only allowed the dead to be buried twice. One of the graves was shelled.
The liberation of Yagodny by Ukrainian troops began at the end of March. On April 3, the village was liberated from Russian troops. Journalists who arrived in the village after the occupation removed the remains of Russian equipment on the streets of Yagodny, the destroyed buildings and inscriptions on the walls of the school basement.
Morally difficult and exhausting shooting
Photographer Danylo Pavlov came to the village of Yahydne a few weeks after his release. He had already filmed the de-occupied Bucha, Borodyanka, Gostomel and communicated with their inhabitants.
“Despite what I saw in the Kyiv region, the trip to Yagodne impressed me greatly,” recalls Danylo Pavlov. “People with tears in their eyes told about what they had experienced and showed their destroyed homes. It was a morally difficult and exhausting shoot.”
Local residents tried to clean up all the mess left behind by the Russian military. They walked by the houses, cleared the streets. “In fact, all the residents of Yagodny were driven into the narrow basement of the school. Their houses and apartments were occupied by the Russians. People were not in their apartments, did not know what was happening at all upstairs. Many houses were damaged, some burned completely, and burned Russian equipment remained on the streets,” says Danylo Pavlov. According to residents, there were two units in the village that did not communicate well with each other. One of the units consisted of Buryats, to which even the Russian military did not want to go.
In Yagodny, Daniel met a man who hid people with his fellow villagers under the shelling of the Russian military. “They dug graves in the cemetery and lay there during the shelling. Grandpa often cried and kept repeating: “For what?” His house completely burned down,” Pavlov says. The photographer recalls a man with a bicycle who led him to fresh graves in the cemetery. He also cried a lot and was often baptized. People were just on the edge. Daniel went to other accommodations. For example, I was in an apartment where a dress hung on the mannequin - a sad hello from the past of normal life. In another house, he saw a boy with a cat who were sitting in a cold room without a roof.
A cramped basement
In Yagodny, Daniel Pavlov saw a large number of Russian newspapers scattered around the school. There was “Komsomolskaya Pravda” with a Russian agenda. “Not only were the local residents sitting in the basement without any contact with the outside world, but Russian newspapers were also brought to them. People felt constant pressure from the military of the Russian Federation,” Pavlov says.
The school basement, in which people were kept, was opened for Daniel by a high school student. They went down together. On the wall there is an inscription: on the right there are ten names of those killed in the basement, on the left - the names of those killed by Russian soldiers. “The local inhabitants of Yagodny shared with me their grief, which overwhelmed them across the land. In the basement there was still the smell of people who were forced to be there in a terrible crush, and terrible sensations. When you read about the number of people who were locked in the basement, and then you see this very tiny room, you feel shocked,” explains the photographer. He met an older man who, during imprisonment, had swollen legs from standing in one place for a long time.
Daniel went through the classes of the school in which the Russians lived. “There are inscriptions on the walls of the school, everything is turned over and broken, and almost the entire floor is covered with crap. I have seen this many times in the territories liberated from Russian troops,” says Danylo Pavlov. Emphasizes the need to keep a memory of the events of war and photography is one of the great ways to do this.
Danylo Pavlov— Ukrainian documentary photographer. Member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers. He has been published in numerous Ukrainian media and various foreign publications, including Washington Post, The Times, Forbes.
Photoeditor of Reporters.media, photographer of The Ukrainians.
Recall that the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers has started a series of materials dedicated to key events of the Russian war against Ukraine, where he publishes memoirs and photographs of Ukrainian documentary photographers.
The project is implemented thanks to support of ZMIN.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Foutei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
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