Ukrainian director and actor Gio Pachkoria, who worked at the Lugansk Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater for almost four years after the occupation of Lugansk, admitted that it was there that he finally mastered the literary Ukrainian language. According to him, his teacher played a huge role in this.

The director noted that it was his work in the theater that helped him enrich the Ukrainian language and learn correct pronunciation: “I honed it in Lugansk. It's in the theater. We had an incredible speech teacher. She was very picky about every word. If someone used Russian tracing paper, she immediately stopped and corrected. For example, not “stroller”, but “carriage”. Not “you are right”, but “you are right”. We literally parsed every word, every line. And it was so etched in my memory that it stayed with me forever."

After moving to Kyiv, Pachkoria noticed that his Ukrainian was different from everyday speech. “When I moved to Kyiv, at first I was even surprised why I spoke Ukrainian so slowly. Of course, my vocabulary was smaller back then, so it took me longer to find words. But I also realized that I speak theatrical Ukrainian. In the theater we were taught to have clear pronunciation, not to “swallow” sounds, not to shorten words. That’s why my speech was a little different from everyday speech,” the director explained..

According to Pachkoria, after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, he completely switched to the Ukrainian language in everyday life. Today the director teaches acting, stages plays in different cities of Ukraine and is convinced that theater has become one of the most important language schools for him.