Ukrainian student sees good in Slovaks despite widespread belief in Russian propaganda
Taras Tsohla does not regret coming to Slovakia to study, but he would like to see Slovak people be more open.
Born in Irshava, a small town in the Transcarpathian region in western Ukraine, Taras Tsohla speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Rusyn, English and now Slovak as well as a little German.
The town, in which most citizens were Rusyns (east Slavs living in the Transcarpathian area covering parts of today’s Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, ed.) in the past, used to be part of the first Czechoslovak republic from 1918 to 1938.
Taras has been studying international relations in Banská Bystrica, central Slovakia, for three and a half years. The 20-year-old arrived here before the war to do his bachelor's degree, to learn an extra language and to gain new experience. However, he is not returning to Ukraine for his master's degree. Taras has not been home since the outbreak of the war.
In the summer, he works in the United States. After the holidays, he will be a fifth-year student at Matej Bel University, at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations.
The Carpathians, the Black Sea and borscht
Irshava is situated on the banks of the Irshavka River and is surrounded by the picturesque nature of the Carpathian Mountains. The town of 10,000 inhabitants has both a rich history and a strong cultural heritage, encompassing various ethnic groups including Ukrainians, Hungarians and Romanians.
The nearest larger town is Mukachevo. Due to the war, some people have left Irshava. Mostly internally displaced people are arriving.
It is the surrounding Carpathian Mountains, the Black Sea and borscht that Taras loves about his native Ukraine. However, what Taras likes the most are the people.
"I feel that these are my people, they are just like me, I feel good and comfortable among them," he says.
The day the war broke out
Two days before the invasion began, Taras had already been following the news closely. He found out about the full-scale invasion at noon on February 24, 2022. He had not slept the night before, so he got up later. His dormitory roommate told him what had happened.
"I immediately started reading everything that was going on, what happened that night and in the morning. I called my mom. She was stressed, she didn't know how to withdraw money from the ATM any more," he recalls of that day.
After lunch, he attended a lecture at the university. In the evening, there was a protest in front of the Russian Consulate General in Banská Bystrica.
"I took part," he says.
"I didn't expect it at all," he says of Russia's all-out war in Ukraine. "I thought it was going to be a small war."
He believed that it would only have happened in areas under the control of the Russian Federation, that is, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. He never thought it would be total aggression.
The old Ukraine will not come back
After almost four years in Slovakia, how does Taras feel about Ukraine today?
"That's a good question," he says, reflecting.
He says that "his" Ukraine was the Ukraine of two years ago, before the war. Now the country has changed a lot. But he still feels that it is his home, he has family and friends there.
"But sometimes I ask myself, do I really still have friends there? A long time has passed, they have changed, I'm elsewhere, we don't see each other," he explains. "It's more likely that I have a romantic image of Ukraine in my head that I've memorised," he adds.
Ukraine as it was, according to Taras, will never return.
"When we look at cities in eastern Ukraine, like Bakhmut or Avdiivka, they are completely destroyed. There is nothing left, no one lives there, and there is no point in rebuilding them," he thinks.
According to him, it might take 20 or 30 years for Ukraine to recover and stabilise.
"I'm basing this on the fact that currently 30 percent of Ukraine is occupied, and no one knows how the situation might further develop," he adds.
Father in Germany, mother at home
Taras's entire family stayed in Ukraine, except for his father who has worked in Germany for over seven years. According to him, Irshava is relatively safe. However, what complicates life for people are the power outages. There are days when they have no electricity at all, then it works for a week, then it goes out again. When that happens, there is no internet either, so the family cannot connect.
The Russians are systematically and on a daily basis destroying Ukraine's energy infrastructure. This affects the entire country, not just the cities where the fighting is taking place or those close to them. They also cut off electricity in the western part of the country to maintain the stability of the whole system.
When the electricity is working, Taras talks to his family every day. Four weeks ago, when still in Slovakia, they even visited him. His mother works as a manager at a gas station, and his sister, who is 13 years old, goes to school.
When the war broke out, Taras's father was very stressed, especially about his mother and sister. They went to Germany for several months. However, they eventually returned.
"We also have grandparents in Ukraine, and my sister experienced bullying at school in Germany, so they came back," he explains.
Plans for the near future
"I'll return from the USA, go to Prague for a semester on Erasmus, finish my studies in Banská Bystrica, and move to Bratislava to try to find a job there," Taras lists his plans.
The fact that half of Slovaks believe Russian narratives and hoaxes does not draw him away from working and living in Slovakia.
"The other half doesn't believe in them, and they are great people. I have a lot of smart Slovaks around me, and it's easy to function with them in a pro-Western, pro-European, pro-Ukrainian bubble," he thinks.
In Ukraine, he also applied to the best university, Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv. He was accepted but chose Slovakia in the end.
"Because it's closer than Kyiv, for the additional language, and because of the opportunities – I gained more here than if I had studied there," he says.
As a student, he has already been to the European Parliament in Brussels for a human rights assembly, had an internship at the Globsec Forum Bratislava 2023, and also participates in Erasmus.
"I'm most drawn to human rights, working at some NGO or an embassy," he says.
Following Slovak politics
Taras also follows Slovak politics. He says that he understands why politicians use peace to attract voters.
"When you want to win elections, you do everything for it; it's not very fair, but I understand why politicians do it," he says.
The topic of peace in Slovakia is very popular and effective, because the war directly affects Slovak people as Ukraine's eastern neighbour, Taras says.
He used to try debating several times with people who believe Russian hoaxes.
"But I could not convince them, and now I don't waste my energy trying to prove something to them. I put the arguments on the table, and they responded with hoaxes and disinformation they read on Facebook," he explains.
Helping refugees is great. Supplying weapons? Less so
According to Taras, the assistance to refugees is set up very well in Slovakia and throughout the EU.
"When we talk about military assistance, I feel the opposite," he says.
Investing in the Ukrainian army is, according to him, Europe's investment in its own security.
"Ukrainian politicians and ministers assess it as insufficient, so it probably is," he says.
He explains this by saying that the EU does not want to escalate the conflict and does not want to become an active and direct part of it.
Taras studies in Banská Bystrica. (Source: Courtesy of T. T.)Three or four more years
Taras spends at least an hour every day reading news about Ukraine. He mainly looks at Telegram, the most popular social network in Ukraine. As he says, at the beginning he thought that the war would last three or four days. "When the Russians left the northern regions, Kyiv and Chernihiv, I realised that it would be long. In my opinion, the war will last at least another three or four years; unfortunately, I don't see an end to it now," he says.
If the Russians were to get the eastern regions today, according to him, more aggression would come in a few years unless an internationally legally binding defence agreement is established to guarantee Ukraine's security. Taras adds that President Zelensky is making more controversial decisions today, but he does not question his legitimacy.
"We do not have another president, and we cannot elect one in this situation; there is no other alternative now," he adds.
He describes how even in Ukraine there are voices saying that there has been enough war or enough of President Zelensky. "Let's solve this somehow, let's build peace," meaning that the war has already cost too much money and human lives.
Go fight
When Taras came to Banská Bystrica, there were about 600 foreign students at the school. Today there are many more. Most of the newcomers are from Ukraine.
When he came to Slovakia, he felt welcomed.
"Now I also encounter unpleasant situations on the street; once an old man came up to me and my friends, saying why we aren't fighting on the front. 'Go fight,' he told us," describing situations he did not experience before the war.
"I think part of what is happening is related to the fact that in Slovakia, there aren't enough good economic opportunities for Slovaks or job opportunities if you are older," he says.
People are then more likely to believe that 100,000 Ukrainians came here to take benefits and steal their jobs. According to him, there is a lot of disinformation, and it has a strong influence on the thinking of Slovaks across the country.
While before the war you could mostly see Ukrainian students and workers in Banská Bystrica, now there are more Ukrainian mothers with children, Taras thinks.
No Slovak friends
Taras believes that the decision to go to Banská Bystrica was a good one.
However, he finds the city a bit small and does not think there are sufficient opportunities. Slovaks and Ukrainians are the two largest groups at the school where he studies.
"Today, I function in a Ukrainian bubble; in four years, I have not managed to make a Slovak friend," he says surprisingly. According to him, Slovaks are quite closed off, and it is hard to penetrate their circles. "I could not do it even with my classmates, as if they also have their own bubble."
This story was created with support from UNESCO under the Support for Ukrainian Refugees through Media program, funded by the Japanese government.
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