The Property Store welcome the Buhaichuk family to East Kilbride!
March 3rd 2022
While on holiday, Lorri and her husband Keith were watching events unfold in Ukraine. The decided they wanted to help in some small way and would sponsor a family to live in East Kilbride.
March 18th 2022
The homes for Ukraine scheme was launched but wasn't working so they searched online to find 'their family'; enter the Buhaichuck family! Tatyana, Sophie and Aaron were the result of this and the following weeks were filled dealing with all the red tape and substantial obstacles preventing the family from travelling to Scotland.
April 25th 2022
Babushka (Grandmother) Tatyana became ill and was admitted to hospital for an operation.
Tuesday 2nd May 2022
Eventually at 6 weeks and no answer as to when they would be able to travel Lorri made the decision to travel to Berlin. where the family were staying in a Red Cross Accommodation sharing space and facilities with other refugees from many different countries. Lorri arranged hotel accommodation for herself and the family where they quickly got to know each other.
Their initial meeting at Hauptbahnhof Station in Berlin was full of tears, smiles and hugs and the language barrier didn't effect the understanding of each others emotions.
The days that followed were spent queuing outside the UK immigration office where they were not allowed into the building and had the embarrassment of discussing their case in earshot of many other refugees.
Wednesday 3rd May 2022
Request for help were ignored and were simply told, "they must wait". Lorri who witnessed all of this with the family grew quickly frustrated and decided to take matters into her own hands. She contacted Louise Hossie at STV and told her the issues the Buhaichuk family were facing in Berlin. Over the course of that day, they were interviewed over Zoom and sent pictures and video footage of the family both in their past life and their current circumstances.
Thursday 4rd May 2022
This was shown on the Thursday evening news.
She also contacted local MP and her assistant raised the case with the home office. The next 24 hours were nail biting where the family jumped every time the phone alerted, hoping this would be the missing visa for the child. Lorri had booked flights for the family to return home to Scotland on the Friday and they decided that night that they would all travel to the airport the following day and hope that the visa would arrive before the flight. Needless to say no one slept much that night and the carpet took a lot of wear and tear from the pacing.
Friday 5th May 2022
The next morning they were all feeling nervous and unable to eat when they arrived at the airport. They went through the initial security checks and were highly excited as everything seemed to be fine. When they got to the departure gate they were asked for Aaron's visa which they unfortunately had not yet received. they were told everyone was able to fly except Aaron which was clearly not an option. There was many tears and the family were unclear as to what was actually happening so Lorri found someone who could speak Russian in the airpot staff and begged them to help the family understand what was happening and also the german speaking officials.
Once the plane was fully loaded and despite several attempts by the staff to allow the child to travel, they were told consent had not been given. This decision caused obvious distress and the airline began removing the families luggage from the hold. As the baggage was being removed Sophia received a text message which she showed to the airline officials who accepted the document and advised they could all fly after all.
Baggage was then returned to the hold and the rest of the passengers were delighted when the plane was finally able to depart with us all on board. The airline staff kindly gave them Prosecco and food to celebrate and Tatyana and Aaron enjoyed their first flight. We had many questions to answer at boarder control but they were kind and made it as simple as possible. There were more tears as we finally were able to travel to East Kilbride and their lives.
If you are interested about following the rest of the Buhaichuk family story we will be uploading more blogs soon.