Until October, the medieval castle on the hill above Mukacheve in Ukraine's westernmost region sported a statue of Hungary's national symbol, the "turul" bird. It has since been replaced with Ukraine's trident after the city's mayor ordered the mythical creature's replacement, unsettling Transcarpathia's large Hungarian community and sparking protests from Budapest. Closer to Budapest than Kyiv and part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until World War I, multi-ethnic Transcarpathia borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and is home to over 100,000 Magyars -- its biggest minority group. "There are more and more things happening that make us Hungarians feel like second hand citizens living here" says one teacher at a Hungarian school in the region, while Mukacheve's mayor says "in the castle, under such a spotlight, there should be only Ukrainian symbols". IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES