PAVEL KANTCHEV could be described as the perfect example of what a young person can do with the right attitude and the freedom to get on with it.
While the vast majority of young people in Cyprus do walk the straight and narrow, it’s a rare few that would leave the comfort of home to live alone in a strange city at the age of 17 in order to pursue a dream.
Pavel won a place to study law at Cambridge after graduating from the English School last year. But unlike his peers who will most likely be supported financially by their parents, Pavel has had to make his own way there.
Since graduation, he has been working three jobs to support himself, and to save the ?10,000 sterling he will need for his first year at Cambridge. Although he is not quite there yet, it is an amazing feat for a 20-year-old. Three years ago when he was 17, Pavel, who had been living in Paphos with his mother, stepfather, grandmother and little brother since coming from Bulgaria at the age of 10, decided the only way he would ever reach Cambridge was to attend the English School in Nicosia.
“I’ve been wanting to go to Cambridge since I was 13, maybe even younger so I was pretty happy when I got accepted,” he said.
“Going to the English School was an opportunity and I took it. Obviously my parents couldn’t move with me. I moved into a studio near my school so I didn’t have to walk too far.”
Pavel said his parents paid his rent and he worked part time for his step father while attending school. On graduation he remained in Nicosia because the work opportunities were better. He had also made a life of his own by then and had found that all-important part-time job at a law office.
“I was really lucky to find it,” said Pavel, who also works at a popular coffee chain while still continuing to work part-time for his stepfather. Sometimes he works a 14-hour day.
He doesn’t smoke, or drink much and is not out partying every night. “Sometimes I wish I was,” he sighs. “It’s very frustrating working here every night and your friends come over, order a coffee from you and ask you to go to a party. But by the time I finish here the party would be dead anyway. Sometimes I think I spend too much time thinking about the future and lose out on the present.”
The lifestyle of a normal 20-year-old is not the only thing Pavel has sacrificed to go to Cambridge.
“My mum doesn’t really enjoy the fact I decided to live away from her but I never did anything that would make my parents not trust me in any way so they let me move eventually,” he said. “But you don’t realise how much something means to you until you lose it. The hardest thing I ever had to do was live by myself. It wasn’t so much the cooking or cleaning or shopping…it was being on my own with no one to talk to. I still haven’t gotten used to it. I don’t think I ever will.”
Pavel speaks three languages fluently and is proficient in another two, German and Russian; he plays piano and guitar and reads the classics. One might be forgiven for thinking that Pavel is the perfect child.
“Don’t you have any faults?”
“Where do I begin,” he says. “Seriously I do…a lot.”
He does worry somewhat that his single-mindedness about Cambridge might be affecting the people he is closest to. “As long as it doesn’t completely take you over…as long as it doesn’t control your life or push people away from you, because you only see one thing as being important,” he said.
His other worry, although he says he is optimistic, is college money.
On top of ?10,000 for the first year he must come up with the same amount for the subsequent two years. He hasn’t figured that out yet but says it won’t stop him trying. He said his parents were not in a position to help and Cambridge doesn’t allow students to work because the law course is intensive.
“If I was to get the tuition fee loan, I will have enough if you include my savings as well. However the second year and third year are going to be a little more problematic,” he said.
He said it would be devastating to complete the first year and then be unable to continue. But he said he has a feeling he will find it in the end. “It’s nothing certain but…”
In a worst-case scenario, he has a Plan B, which would mean taking another gap year to save more.
“If you think something bad is going to happen then obviously you’re defeating yourself but I think my positive thinking is helping.”
Pavel has already booked his ticket because he doesn’t believe in fate. “Fate limits you. I hate the idea of predestination. I don’t want to think like that,” he said. “I want to feel I’m in control of my life. I decide when to give up.”
