In 1922, a period of work and active social and political life began: he was deputy chief of a sugar mill, then a district political inspector at the Okhtyr police, and a drawing teacher in a colony for homeless and orphans. At that time he visited Donbas, Crimea and Kuban. Bahrianyi did enter the Kiev Art Institute, but did not graduate f due to material distress and prejudiced attitude of the management. Due to that he was speaking Ukrainian and was Ukrainian-spirited young man, his peers mocked him for a long time and called him "mazepian" (a Russian derogatory term for Ukrainians after Ivan Mazepa, similar to modern Banderites), that may have been one of the reasons for joining the OUN in the future.