On the first of his two-day trip to Estonia, Prince William visited a school in the capital Tallinn that is for Ukrainian refugees and donned a friendship band in the country’s colours
Russell Myers recaps Prince William’s first day of trip to Estonia
Prince William repeatedly praised the ‘resilience’ of the Ukrainian people as he donned a friendship band in their country’s colours on a visit to ‘The Freedom School’ for refugees. William, 42, was visiting the educational establishment in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, where he also played basketball with students and learnt to say – admittedly not very confidently – good afternoon in both Estonian and Ukrainian.
Taking a seat with students aged 16 to 18 in a Ukrainian language lesson, he told them encouragingly: “It’s looking forward to the future in a positive way, it’s very important. It’s been a very difficult few years for you guys. Everyone sees that. What I love is (that) Ukrainian resilience is everywhere.
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“You all are very smiley and very strong and very spiritual people. And honestly that comes across everywhere. Even the Ukrainians I’ve met in the UK and like that – very resilient and very strong about things. You have a very good spirit, very good souls, it’s very important. Even if your language is very hard to learn. I need to take some of these big words with me to look at, learn my languages better.”
He was asked by student counsellor Yelyzaveta Lukiianchuk, 18, if she could give him a friendship bracelet made by the pupils in the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow. He asked her to put it on and said: “That’s brilliant, my daughter will try and probably poach it off me later. She loves these friendship bracelets. Thank you very much, I like the Ukrainian colours. Thank you, that’s very kind.”
As he entered the classroom, the prince said: “It’s quieter here, I’ve been playing basketball downstairs.” Yelyzaveta told him about the languages they had been learning since many of them fled their homeland after the Russian invasion.
William said: “I’ve learnt that the Estonian and Ukrainian languages are not very similar at all. It’s very hard to learn each other’s languages. In the Uk we don’t do quite so many languages. We are not as good at learning so many languages.”
Asking whether he could sit down and chat, the prince was taught how to say good afternoon first in Ukrainian, repeating it several times, and then Estonian, which he struggled with much more. “My goodness this is going to be very confusing, I need a whole year of these lessons,” he smiled. “It’s quite tricky when one word means three different things.”
The students told him they were happy to be continuing to learn their native language as well as helping them to settle in a strange country. “How has it been settling in here over the years?” asked the prince.
“Is the difficult getting information from back home? What do you hope is going to happen soon? Do you hope there will be a deal soon and the fighting will stop? We hope and believe the war will stop,” he was told.
“It’s too early to even think about now but is your life in Estonia now or do you one day think you will be back in Ukraine?’ he enquired. He was told they all hoped to go home. He also spoke to teachers and psychologists who have been helping the children with the trauma they have experienced.
“Are you hearing from some of the children? Do they find it difficult to talk?” he asked. “You must be keeping a careful eye on them.” He added: “With everything that is going on in the world right now you need to keep a sense of optimism. The Ukrainian spirit is strong.”
Earlier he joined students on the school’s basketball court. One told him: “I think a lot about my home.” Asked whether he had hope for the future, he told the prince: “We will never give up.” “That sort of resilience is so important,” William said.
He added: “Do you keep in touch with your families? Do you have hopes of going home?” He was then persuaded to join a game in which three teams took turns trying to shoot as many hoops as possible each. His first shot came close, bouncingly tantalising around the rim. His other three shots went wide, despite him taking off his jacket and throwing it to one side, but his team did make it to the finals and win.
