Dear UK Fans! Due to visa delays on the side of UKVI, our shows in UK have to be postponed. We are not sure how long it takes us to get the visas: maybe a day, maybe a week. We are waiting for them. We will keep you posted every day as the situation develops.
Right now we are right across the Channel from you, waiting for our UK visas. We (Jane and Aor) are in Paris, France, while Anna and Belf are in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Manuele is at home in Rome, Italy – but he does not need a UK visa. Ryan – our guitarist for the UK tour – is Scottish.
After the EU leg of our tour we immediately applied for Tier 5 UK work visas, and paid a double price for expediting them (priority visa service). This cost us ÂŁ3,000 – which our UK promoter Jon had gallantly lended us for this purpose. The UKVI website says that these priority visas take 5 working days to be done, but the guys at the visa application centres told us that because of the delays its more like 10 working days. Which was totally OK, since we applied on 4th and 6th October – however, by now both these terms have long since passed.
Last time – we actually did get the visas. We applied in January for the March shows but got them in May, way after the shows. But it was a different type of visa, which is why this time we applied for the fastest option.
There is no way to communicate with the UKVI except for a paid phone / email support – and those just told us that there are delays in general because of the influx of Ukrainian applications which obviously get priority – and we have to wait…
Under these circumstances, after holding calls with Jon and the band – the only thing we decided we could do is to start postponing the shows yet again.
So far we are not naming new dates, but if we get our visas this week, the shows will be the next week – i.e. the first week of November.
If we do not get our visas this week – then we will plan from there, and see where we can place the new dates.
PLEASE HOLD ON TO YOUR TICKETS IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT. Since October 2019 we have been trying very hard to get to you. The shows that were initially announced 3 years ago were eventually postponed 5 times: first because of the covid lockdowns and then because of the war. Over these three years we have been selling tickets ourselves, and of course there have been huge losses due to all these postponements – making it impossible for us to refund all of them.
We are still trying to make these shows happen, and right now we need your support to do it more than ever.
We are so close to you yet separated by this stupid political barrier that ruins so much in this world. Our main problem is our passports and the fact that we were unlucky enough to be born in a country which has decided to alienate itself against the entire planet. We are not part of that agenda, we don’t want to have anything to do with it – and we are doing all we can to escape it. But we are tied by the undesired connection to our country of birth that has never been our choice.
We would gladly throw our Russian passports into the Seine right now – but unfortunately we can’t do it as there is no immediate alternative. It is very hard for us to get residence in a proper country. Unlike the free peoples of the West, we can’t simply go and live where our heart lies. We need visas and residence permits which are very hard to obtain. But even when we do manage this – and all our thoughts are bent on it – it will take a minimum of five years to get a new citizenship…
So for now, we have to sit here and wait.
Thank you for your understanding, and thank you for your support.
We will be informing you daily starting from today.
Good luck, guys.