Robert's bunker on Mount Yavorina near the village of Lypa

Yaroslav (Robert) Melnyk was born in Berezhnytsia, Kalush district. He studied at the Rohatyn Gymnasium in 1937-1939, from which he was expelled for belonging to the OUN. In 1939, he taught in his native village. In the same year, he began active nationalist activities. He was a referent, district leader, and regional leader of the OUN in Stanislavshchyna. In 1945-1946 he was the leader of the OUN in the Carpathian region.

Trying to decapitate the leadership and capture "Robert" alive, the Bolsheviks did their best to find out where he was. In 1946, the NKVD caught a traitor, a Jew named Kalym, who was in charge of the hiding place of the regional leadership. The bunker was located in the Bolekhiv district above the Hlybokyi stream, which flows into the Mizunka river near Mount Yavorina, south of the village of Lypa. The entrance to the bunker was well camouflaged by a pine tree that allegedly grew there.

On October 31, 1946, the bunker was surrounded by NKVD troops. At that time, in addition to Robert, there was his wife with a small infant child, the leader of the Skala Security Service, and several guards. The Bolsheviks demanded that they surrender alive, but after the documents were burned, the Ukrainian anthem was heard from the bunker, and then shots were fired. "Robert" killed his son, his wife Antonina, and then himself. The others had to kill each other, and the last one had to blow up the bunker. And so it happened, only the last of the partisans did not blow up the bunker, survived, and after those terrible years lived in Ivano-Frankivsk. He was a traitor.

"Robert" was awarded the Bronze Cross of Merit and the Gold Cross of Merit, 1st Class, posthumously. In 1996, a memorial sign was unveiled in his native village. The Yavorina tract, where "Robert" died, has been restored, and hundreds of people come here every year to pay tribute to the immortal heroes.

A cemetery was found and arranged near the bunker (in the Hlybokyi tract). The commander of the UPA's senior officers' school "Oleni", Major F. Polevyi ("Pol"), instructors, guides, and riflemen of the headquarters, who died in an unequal battle with the NKVD, are buried here. The Oleni school was established in 1943 in the Volyn forests and later relocated to the Carpathians.

Two routes to the hiding place are marked, one from the village of Lypa and the other from the Carpathian Tram stop in the Hlybokyi tract.