This article is the second in a series of reports on the war in Ukraine’s effect on bordering Eastern European countries. It is written by two Colorado College students traveling through the region and details how local organizations have refocused their efforts to support migrants fleeing the conflict.

BANSKÁ BYSTRICA, SLOVAKIA • Zahrada is a bar, cafe and meeting house located just outside Banská Bystrica’s main square. Surrounding the main edifice is a garden filled with shaded benches and cozy tables.

But the space has an unusual history. Under communist rule, the building was a government warehouse. When a local entrepreneur donated the property to a nongovernmental organization in 2010, the area became an epicenter for local social movements.

Pride flags hang around the central interior. Patrons wear blue and yellow pins in solidarity with Ukraine, Slovakia’s eastern neighbor. Behind one wall, opposite the beer taps and espresso machines, is a small black box theater that hosts local productions.

At a corner table, four community organizers gathered on a Wednesday afternoon, discussing regional politics while American rock music played in the background. One wrote neat, bulleted points in a notebook. Another nursed a pint of lager. In brisk Slovak, they discussed the implications of a recent conference in Bratislava and the next steps to take before the upcoming parliamentary election.

These individuals represent Not In Our Town, a grassroots movement started 10 years ago in response to the local gubernatorial election of Marian Kotleba, a far-right political extremist with nostalgic views of Nazi rule. When the governor took office, Chuck Hirt, a Cincinnati native who worked as a community organizer in Banská Bystrica for over two decades, encouraged pro-democracy activists to use an existing American movement as the basis for their own political organizing group.

But while the group may have been influenced by existing American actors, local community leaders formed it into its own unique identity.

“We kind of set our own path about the kind of direction we wanted it to go,” said Hirt. “We’ve been free to develop Not In Our Town as we wish.”

Now, the group does more than just political organizing. There are roughly 140 people on the mailing list, about 25 of whom attend meetings frequently. Since the war in Ukraine broke out last year, their organizing has been largely based around helping migrants in Slovakia, either through direct community events or through political activism.

Zuzana Úradníčková, a member of the group, works to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees in the Banská Bystrica region. Inside a facility atop one of the city’s many rolling hills, she sat at a central table surrounded by shelves upon shelves of supplies, ranging from food to hygienics to medicine.

Úradníčková is the coordinator of the Centrum Materiálnej Pomoci, an organization that provides humanitarian aid to Ukrainians in the Banská Bystrica area. On their busiest days, she says, they have up to 700 people come through the center, all of whom receive necessary supplies.

Not everyone can actually come to the center, though, and Úradníčková routinely sees individuals picking up supplies to take to smaller towns in the region.

One of these individuals, Artem, is only 13 years old. Every week, he takes a bus to the center from his hometown of Brezno, over an hour’s ride away. His mother works to support him and his six siblings. He is the one who comes to the center to pick up food and other essentials for his family.

Material aid is only one part of the work that Úradníčková does. She also organizes community events focused on highlighting the similarities between Ukrainian migrants and Slovak citizens. “We have many traditions so close together. They are so close that sometimes we don’t know if they are Ukrainian or Slovak,” said Úradníčková. “But many Slovaks now think that Russian culture is more close than Ukraine.”

This cultural conflict is a part of the larger turmoil unfolding in the region. Since their invasion of Ukraine, Russia has put political pressure on Slavic countries. “Slovakia is in a hybrid war with Russia. And we see it every day,” said Úradníčková.

But Slovakia is not fighting this hybrid war alone.

In the main hallway of the center, next to photos of volunteers and posters depicting the Ukrainian countryside, a printed-out picture of an American flag is taped to the wall. Underneath it reads “This activity was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.”

The image, Úradníčková says, celebrates a donation that the facility received for its programs, one of a number of contributions that the U.S. has made to Slovakia since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

According to the U.S. Embassy in Slovakia, America gave $200 million to the nation in late 2022 to “strengthen Slovak security and military interoperability.” Moreover, the U.S. remains one of the largest donors to the United Nations, contributing over $12 billion in 2021, one-fifth of the body’s annual operating budget.

The two nations continue to cooperate diplomatically as well. As part of the State Partnership Program, Slovak armed forces have performed regular military exercises with the Indiana National Guard since 1994. The country has also been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since 2004.

In early 2023, both countries, among others, signed a statement reaffirming their “full support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, as well as Ukraine’s right to defend itself against Russian aggression.”

But the United States’ impact on the region extends beyond direct political involvement. Dating back to the Cold War, American influence in Eastern Europe arrived through a variety of different mediums.

“There is this narrative in Slovakia and the Czech Republic that the thing that contributed more to the fall of the Soviet Union and fall of communism in Czechoslovakia wasn’t American arms or the nukes put in Germany and so on, but it was jeans and rock ‘n’ roll,” said Pavol Kosnáč, director of the DEKK Research Institute, a group focused on social analysis.

Now, Kosnáč says, the United States is “certainly the strongest cultural influence around the world today.”

As American and Russian efforts clash in Eastern Europe, Slovakian democracy continues to hang in the balance. At the end of September, Slovakia will hold parliamentary elections, and prominent neo-Nazi parties are once again gaining traction among voters. If these parties are elected, current Ukrainian aid could give way to increased Russian support.

“We are a young democracy,” said Csilla Droppova, an NGO financier and member of Not In Our Town. “I think we are on some edge: We will continue the way we started this 35 years ago, or we will slip back to the old style. It is hard for us, for everybody.”

Droppova also stressed the importance of continuing current relief efforts for Ukrainians, such as those undertaken by members of Not In Our Town, despite the growing political tension.

“We can complain about a lot of things that don’t work well, but we are still able to help, we are still able to support, and we are still able to have freedom here.”