Between the 24th and the 28th July the Europaburg castle Forchtenstein was host to a peace seminar in cooperation with the Russian-Austrian “Sochi Dialogue” forum. The participants were 43 high school and university students from Russia, Ukraine, and Austria. The focus of the seminar were political discussions, intercultural exchange, and free-time activities in the vicinity.

Several presenters coming from different walks in life completed the versatile special programme: Dieter Bacher, Research Fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the research on consequences of war in Graz, held a lecture about the Russian-Austrian research cooperation, Tina Obermoser of Europe Direct discussed the results of the European election and the instruments of direct democracy in Europe with the participants. Theresa Seunig, Tina Breznik, and Fabian Fischer of the Young European Federalists (JEF) added an informal touch to the programme with get-to-know-each-other activities and energizers and talked about youth goals in the areas of work, health, and sustainability during a workshop. The participants got to know each other even better in a creative way in the Improvisational theatre staged by Gerhild Resch and Edith Wildenberg during two evenings.

This event is a “symbol of peaceful togetherness“, as Christoph Leitl summarized after meeting the high schoolers and students at the beginning in a fireside conversation. An animated discussion ensued already on the first evening, and in the course of the lectures that followed it became clear how different the attitudes of the Russian and the Ukrainian participants are, and how deeply rooted the harm done on both sides is. However, the young people agreed that it is important to foster mutual understanding despite the current conflicts, to find similarities and to be open to other perspectives. Dialogue forums such as EYFON and the Sochi Dialogue contribute valuably to that purpose. And, as one of the participants said in the end: „Bring them together as you do it. It makes more effect than you think!“