“One day you hear the news that somebody wants to attack your city. Your neighbors start to support another country and other political ideas and you feel really strange because yesterday they were your friends and now you're like, enemies.”
In April of 2014, separatists seized government buildings and declared the Donetsk Peoples' Republic, or DPR. They announced that Donetsk was no longer part of Ukraine.
In September, men with guns raised the flag of the DPR at the university. They demanded a pledge of allegiance from the teachers. Professors who did not support the rebels had to leave.
Gryniuk says the biggest problem is finding reasonably priced housing for the growing number of students.