# From Estonia's Fulbright Program to HUSI February 12, 2025 Aubrey Lay - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) ![Estonian, Ukrainian, and school flags fly outside the Freedom School in Tallinn](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image.png?itok=goX8-V4t) Estonian, Ukrainian, and school flags fly outside the Freedom School in Tallinn*Disclaimer: Views expressed in this blog post are mine and do not represent the Fulbright Program, U.S. Government, American Embassy in Tallinn, or host institutions.* In the summer of 2022, less than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, I applied for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Ukraine. With the conflict quickly developing, I wasn’t sure if the program would run in Ukraine. After working with Ukrainian diaspora organizations in the U.S. throughout college and conducting research on humanitarian responses to Ukrainian displacement, I hoped to work anywhere where I could continue to support the Ukrainian people. This led me, surprisingly, to teach through Estonia’s Fulbright Program, and eventually to study at HUSI this summer. ![Making vareniki in the courtyard of the Ukrainian Cultural Center](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image%20%281%29.png?itok=J65Ue5cV) Making vareniki in the courtyard of the Ukrainian Cultural CenterFor the past academic year, I’ve taught English and American culture at Tallinn, Estonia’s Freedom School (Vabaduse Kool/Школа Cвободи). The Freedom School was [founded in 2022 by the Estonian government](https://news.err.ee/1608678808/thousands-of-ukrainian-children-to-attend-estonian-schools-this-fall), to serve the influx of refugee children following the full-scale invasion. At this school, about 600 Ukrainian students in grades 7-12 (the vast majority of whom arrived after 2022) learn in a bilingual environment, with half their classes taught in Ukrainian and half taught in Estonian. Teachers come from Ukrainian, Estonian, and other backgrounds. I assist in classes, run conversation clubs for students and staff, and run cultural programming to expose students to US and other Anglophone cultures. After applying for a grant renewal, I am excited to return to Tallinn in September 2024 for a second year of teaching. I decided to devote the intervening summer to Ukrainian language study to support my work in the classroom and continued research. I was excited to take Intensive Elementary Ukrainian with Dr. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, with support from the HUSI Scholarship; HURI’s unparalleled programming; and the course’s online modality, which allowed me to finish out my first grant year in Estonia. I am grateful for my experience through the HUSI Scholarship, and for Professor Shpylova-Saeed and teaching assistant Oleksa Martinouk’s passionate instruction. ![Student-painted art in a hallway at Freedom School—featuring a peace dove and a swallow, the Estonian national bird](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image%20%282%29.png?itok=mwOkA35z) Student-painted art in a hallway at Freedom School—featuring a peace dove and a swallow, the Estonian national birdThroughout our class, we discussed the unique urgency of studying and supporting Ukrainian culture and language globally at a time when Russia seeks to erase Ukrainian culture and history outright. In the diaspora and among displaced Ukrainians, connection to Ukrainian culture is a crucial lifeline. Ukrainians were one of the most numerous immigrant groups in Estonia even prior to 2022, but current state estimates place the Ukrainian population of Estonia at [60,414, over 4% of the population.](https://www.stat.ee/en/news/estonias-population-increasing-due-ukrainian-immigration#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLast%20year%2C%2012%2C543%20people%20left,of%202022%2C%E2%80%9D%20she%20said.) In Estonia, a diverse set of diaspora organizations supports Ukrainian culture. [The Ukrainian Cultural Center of Tallinn](https://ukk.ee/en/home/) ([ЦЕНТР УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ КУЛЬТУРИ У ТАЛЛІННІ](https://ukk.ee/uk/home-in-ukr/)) hosts a variety of cultural events and runs a weekend school for children to practice Ukrainian, as well as learning Estonian and English. I’ve been lucky enough to volunteer there, where some Ukrainian children have begun to speak Ukrainian fluently for the first time. [The Association of Ukrainian Organizations in Estonia](https://ukraine.ee/en/page/about-us), founded in 2000, counts 19 members, including a library, a radio station, and social-cultural hometown organizations in cities and towns throughout the country. ![A sign at the main entrance to the school reads: “Kõik saab korda/все буде гаразд” (“Everything will be fine”)](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image%20%283%29.png?itok=nJK_ZmLo) A sign at the main entrance to the school reads: “Kõik saab korda/все буде гаразд” (“Everything will be fine”)Support for Ukraine is palpable in Tallinn— for years now, the жовто-блакитний (yellow and blue) Ukrainian flag has been boldly displayed alongside the sinimustvalge (blue-black-white), on lapel pins, in front of government buildings, and outside private residences. Keeleklikk, an online Estonian course funded by the European Social Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science, was originally set up to accommodate Russian- and English-speaking learners, but Ukrainian was recently added as a language of instruction. Estonian cultural heritage institutions like the Estonian Open Air Museum host events promoting local Ukrainian artists and businesses. Many Estonians I speak to see their own country’s history of occupation and resistance in Ukraine’s current struggle, and find the basis for solidarity in this shared experience of colonialism and empire. The Freedom School was founded out of this solidarity, and its dual immersion model is a powerful force. Situated near Tallinn’s city center, the school has access to the green space of Tuvi Park and the city’s Old Town as its extended classroom. Positive messages and vocabulary stickers in both languages line the halls, and student-produced art features prominently in common spaces. Here, students can feel proud of their Ukrainian identity while building the Estonian language skills needed to thrive in their current home. They can learn and laugh and rest with other youth their age who have experienced similarly traumatic displacements and losses. Colleagues of diverse backgrounds exchange language and culture too. I have never stepped foot in Ukraine, but I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for its culture and land throughout my work in Tallinn, and now through Intensive Elementary Ukrainian at HUSI. The Freedom School is a microcosm of Ukraine’s diversity. In my Tallinn classroom, I teach students from across Ukraine. Sometimes, students are more than excited to tell me about their hometowns. But far away from home, war changes the nature of discussion about even standard classroom topics. I recall a class I assisted in where the textbook assignment asked students to describe their ideal vacation. Almost every student in the classroom wanted to go back to Ukraine—to see family, to see the Carpathian Mountains, to see the Black Sea or the Azov. ![Thanksgiving at the Freedom School](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image%20%285%29.png?itok=PJFRkBzr) Thanksgiving at the Freedom SchoolThrough HUSI coursework, we explored not just the structure of the Ukrainian language, but its cultural and temporal context. As a student of linguistics, I was excited to explore all of these aspects. In breakout rooms with my classmates, we worked through word-final palatalized consonants and tripartite grammatical gender. Class activities covered Ukrainian culture across the country, from Odessa’s cuisine to musical instruments like Kharkiv-style бандура (bandura) and Hutsul трембíта (trembita). Through the poet Lesya Ukrainka’s “Тиша морська” (“Silence of the Sea”), I saw the Black Sea, and in the film Тіні забутих предків (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1965), I watched scenes from the Carpathian Mountains. ![Hand turkey from Thanksgiving. Left to right: being alive; having a family; opportunities to develop; being able to speak my native language at school; feeling emotions](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-02/thumbnail_image%20%286%29.png?itok=Av1wqG7B) Hand turkey from Thanksgiving. Left to right: being alive; having a family; opportunities to develop; being able to speak my native language at school; feeling emotionsHaving previously studied languages with far less complicated grammatical case systems, it was wonderful to spend more time getting a feel for Ukrainian’s 7 cases and how they form meaning with various prepositions. Professor Shpylova-Saeed and Oleksa were patient with my and my classmates’ many questions. Some distinctions become yet more important given the current context. Language learners must understand, for example, that in the locative case, we use в Україні, ‘in Ukraine’ (as a state or nation), whereas на Україні, ‘on Ukraine’ (demoting it to the status of a region) reflects the usage in many recent Russian sources. As in the Freedom School’s classrooms, in our virtual classroom too, conversations reflected the realities of this war. We spent a good amount of time one day discussing how to deliver condolences after a death in the family, and the importance of the 40-day mark after their passing. For American Thanksgiving in November, we had a banquet dinner at Vabaduse Kool, complete with traditional dishes like roast turkey and mashed potatoes alongside homemade vareniki and Estonian sült (similar to Ukrainian холодець). I showed students and teachers how to make the classic “hand turkey”—a Thanksgiving tradition where American children trace their hands and draw them into a turkey—and encouraged everyone to list five things they were thankful for, one on each finger. And on someone’s left index finger (I still don’t know who) ”being able to speak my native language at school” was front and center, right above the turkey’s head. I am also grateful. I am grateful to study the “nightingale language” (cолов'їна мова, to use the nominative case in this language patchwork blog post); to hear it in my daily life at such a special institution; and for this course and virtual summer community which have equipped me to speak it with pride. Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)