Ok, so now that we were engaged, it was time to start thinking about
getting married. We were not going to mess around. We decided to move as
fast as we could with the process so that we do not spend much time
away from each other. My task was to return to the UK and get all the
paperwork required in order for the coming April visit. We were going to
register our marriage at the Kharkiv Registrar (ZAGS) during my
upcoming visit in April.
Leaving for the UK was always hard, because once again meant very long Skype video calls, but this particular return to the UK was to be eventful to the max - I think. Firstly, at the Kharkiv Airport they told me that they could only see me up to Kiev, not London. So I said “Ok, get me to Kiev and I will sort it out from there”. That was about 03:00 AM when I checked in at the Kharkiv Airport. So I land in Kiev in the morning at about 09:00 AM. I pick up my two big suitcases and make my way towards the screens to see about my flight to London. To my surprise, my flight to London was not on the screen. So I go to the Aerosvit Airlines desk to ask what is happening. They did not appear very interested, but reliably informed me that that particular flight was not in operation for about 3 months now. When I told them that I only printed the flight details from their website a week or so ago, they could not explain.
So they gave it a wild guess that I might have been transferred to the 10:00 AM Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight to London, which of course was flying out of another terminal. That meant me running to the other terminal with two big suitcases. I get there and the queues were crazy, not to mention the broken conveyer belts. It took half an hour to get to the check in at which point they could not find my name on the flight and sent me to the UIA desk. By this time it is 30 minutes till the flight departs. So I go to the desk, the person types away for a bit on her keyboard and prints me a different version of the same thing I had in my hand. And with that, she sent me queuing again. I queue for another half hour and I get the same result.
By now the UIA flight has departed and I started getting a bit annoyed. So went back to the first terminal again to give the Aerosvit people some grief about my experience with their airline. There at the Aerosvit desk, I find a mob of very angry travellers who found themselves in my situation. With no concept of civilised queuing being exhibited by the other travellers, I resorted to elbowing myself towards the desk whilst carrying the two big suitcases. Finally, I get nearer to the desk and the person in front of me (a nice young Ukrainian girl) was going to London as well. So I offered to put my passport with hers so that they place us together on a flight to London. A very good job that I did that, since after placing us two on a different flight, the desk promptly closed and all the other people had to go and queue elsewhere.
So now we were placed on a different flight to London via Moscow with Aeroflot. So me and this Ukrainian girl go to the Aeroflot desk to check in our luggage. To our surprise, we find that from Moscow to London we will be flying Business Class. So we fly to Moscow, there we get on the plane to London in business class. What an experience! Glasses of champagne, three course meal, etc. Really amazing experience. Whilst drinking the champagne, the Ukrainian girl started making advances, at which point I switched to orange juice and changed the subject. It was funny that she would do that just after I successfully proposed to my wife to be (Natasha).
Anyway, we finally get to London and find that our troubles are not over. The Aeroflot guys messed our luggage up. They only checked it in up to Moscow not to London. So we had to go home without our bags. For me it meant asking National Express to change my booking since I was meant to land many hours earlier at Gatwick and not Heathrow. After a £5 fee they put me on the next bus to Poole where I arrived after midnight. Almost 24 hours travelling from Kharkiv to Poole, I was well and truly shattered.
I included the above to let people know that things may not go quite as smoothly in Ukraine as they tend to do here in the UK. Be prepared for the possibility that things may not go entirely according to plan.
So now that I was safely back in the UK, rested and refreshed, I started working on the paperwork. The first document I needed was the Certificate of No Impediment. I got that from the local registrar office in Poole. I had to pay £35 and wait about three weeks for it. Then I got a copy of my passport notarised for about £60. After that, I sent both documents to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to legalise the documents for use abroad. They just put on them the Apostil (like a stamp if you like). That cost me another £66 I think. After that, I had to translate the documents into Ukrainian by a recommended translator from the Ukrainian Consulate in London. I got my flight e-Ticket translated as well, since I needed to show the return tickets at the registrar in Ukraine to get the registration date brought forward. Then, I went to the Ukrainian Consulate in London and got their stamp on all the documents. The consulate charged me about £30 per document.
Now I was ready to go to Ukraine and get my marriage registered. Natasha, had to prepare some paperwork of her own there too. The best thing to do is to go to the Central Registrar (of your city or town) in Ukraine where the registration will take place and ask them directly the documents that they will require. Then you can go ahead and get them together. We kept hearing all sorts of conflicting information about what documents we needed and whether they could be done in the UK or best done in Ukraine. Of course doing them in Ukraine can be cheaper, however I chose to do them all in the UK since I had time and things just go smoother in the UK when it comes to bureaucracy.
At the Registrar in Ukraine, I presented the documents, they just checked the stamp in my passport of legal entry into the country and were happy. After showing them the return date on my (translated) plane tickets, they gave us a slot to register which was in two days time from submitting the paperwork. We submitted the paperwork on a Tuesday and the registration was booked for that Thursday. At the Registrar we would advise you to go early in the morning, as the queue at the Kharkiv Registrar of hopeful couples was rather long, long enough to keep us waiting for about 6 or so hours.
The documents that I had to provide were:
- Certificate of No Impediment (from your local Registrar or office for births and marriages).
- Notarised copy of my Passport (I did all the pages of the passport).
- Sent both documents to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the Apostil (stamp).
- Then translated the two documents along with my flights e-Ticket (Ukraine consulate will recommend translator).
- Then got the documents legalised at the Ukrainian consulate in London (they did not stamp the flights e-Ticket)
In Ukraine the Registrar accepted the documents and checked the entry stamp in my passport. And that was it.
Leaving for the UK was always hard, because once again meant very long Skype video calls, but this particular return to the UK was to be eventful to the max - I think. Firstly, at the Kharkiv Airport they told me that they could only see me up to Kiev, not London. So I said “Ok, get me to Kiev and I will sort it out from there”. That was about 03:00 AM when I checked in at the Kharkiv Airport. So I land in Kiev in the morning at about 09:00 AM. I pick up my two big suitcases and make my way towards the screens to see about my flight to London. To my surprise, my flight to London was not on the screen. So I go to the Aerosvit Airlines desk to ask what is happening. They did not appear very interested, but reliably informed me that that particular flight was not in operation for about 3 months now. When I told them that I only printed the flight details from their website a week or so ago, they could not explain.
So they gave it a wild guess that I might have been transferred to the 10:00 AM Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight to London, which of course was flying out of another terminal. That meant me running to the other terminal with two big suitcases. I get there and the queues were crazy, not to mention the broken conveyer belts. It took half an hour to get to the check in at which point they could not find my name on the flight and sent me to the UIA desk. By this time it is 30 minutes till the flight departs. So I go to the desk, the person types away for a bit on her keyboard and prints me a different version of the same thing I had in my hand. And with that, she sent me queuing again. I queue for another half hour and I get the same result.
By now the UIA flight has departed and I started getting a bit annoyed. So went back to the first terminal again to give the Aerosvit people some grief about my experience with their airline. There at the Aerosvit desk, I find a mob of very angry travellers who found themselves in my situation. With no concept of civilised queuing being exhibited by the other travellers, I resorted to elbowing myself towards the desk whilst carrying the two big suitcases. Finally, I get nearer to the desk and the person in front of me (a nice young Ukrainian girl) was going to London as well. So I offered to put my passport with hers so that they place us together on a flight to London. A very good job that I did that, since after placing us two on a different flight, the desk promptly closed and all the other people had to go and queue elsewhere.
So now we were placed on a different flight to London via Moscow with Aeroflot. So me and this Ukrainian girl go to the Aeroflot desk to check in our luggage. To our surprise, we find that from Moscow to London we will be flying Business Class. So we fly to Moscow, there we get on the plane to London in business class. What an experience! Glasses of champagne, three course meal, etc. Really amazing experience. Whilst drinking the champagne, the Ukrainian girl started making advances, at which point I switched to orange juice and changed the subject. It was funny that she would do that just after I successfully proposed to my wife to be (Natasha).
Anyway, we finally get to London and find that our troubles are not over. The Aeroflot guys messed our luggage up. They only checked it in up to Moscow not to London. So we had to go home without our bags. For me it meant asking National Express to change my booking since I was meant to land many hours earlier at Gatwick and not Heathrow. After a £5 fee they put me on the next bus to Poole where I arrived after midnight. Almost 24 hours travelling from Kharkiv to Poole, I was well and truly shattered.
I included the above to let people know that things may not go quite as smoothly in Ukraine as they tend to do here in the UK. Be prepared for the possibility that things may not go entirely according to plan.
So now that I was safely back in the UK, rested and refreshed, I started working on the paperwork. The first document I needed was the Certificate of No Impediment. I got that from the local registrar office in Poole. I had to pay £35 and wait about three weeks for it. Then I got a copy of my passport notarised for about £60. After that, I sent both documents to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to legalise the documents for use abroad. They just put on them the Apostil (like a stamp if you like). That cost me another £66 I think. After that, I had to translate the documents into Ukrainian by a recommended translator from the Ukrainian Consulate in London. I got my flight e-Ticket translated as well, since I needed to show the return tickets at the registrar in Ukraine to get the registration date brought forward. Then, I went to the Ukrainian Consulate in London and got their stamp on all the documents. The consulate charged me about £30 per document.
Now I was ready to go to Ukraine and get my marriage registered. Natasha, had to prepare some paperwork of her own there too. The best thing to do is to go to the Central Registrar (of your city or town) in Ukraine where the registration will take place and ask them directly the documents that they will require. Then you can go ahead and get them together. We kept hearing all sorts of conflicting information about what documents we needed and whether they could be done in the UK or best done in Ukraine. Of course doing them in Ukraine can be cheaper, however I chose to do them all in the UK since I had time and things just go smoother in the UK when it comes to bureaucracy.
At the Registrar in Ukraine, I presented the documents, they just checked the stamp in my passport of legal entry into the country and were happy. After showing them the return date on my (translated) plane tickets, they gave us a slot to register which was in two days time from submitting the paperwork. We submitted the paperwork on a Tuesday and the registration was booked for that Thursday. At the Registrar we would advise you to go early in the morning, as the queue at the Kharkiv Registrar of hopeful couples was rather long, long enough to keep us waiting for about 6 or so hours.
The Moral of the story
Be prepared for many surprises, both pleasant and not quite so pleasant. Prepare well in advance and be very proactive. Do not procrastinate when it comes to getting paperwork done. Get in touch with the registrar in Ukraine to see what they expect from the both of you.The documents that I had to provide were:
- Certificate of No Impediment (from your local Registrar or office for births and marriages).
- Notarised copy of my Passport (I did all the pages of the passport).
- Sent both documents to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the Apostil (stamp).
- Then translated the two documents along with my flights e-Ticket (Ukraine consulate will recommend translator).
- Then got the documents legalised at the Ukrainian consulate in London (they did not stamp the flights e-Ticket)
In Ukraine the Registrar accepted the documents and checked the entry stamp in my passport. And that was it.
Hi Andrei,
ReplyDeleteExcellent article. A couple of questions.
"Notarised copy of my Passport (I did all the pages of the passport)"
- Did you notorise only the pages with writing on? So maybe 4 pages.
- did you somehow notorise the page that is stamped?
- Did notorize the back page of your passport where you write your address?
The Ukraine Consulate have in two months never answered the phone. How did you go about contacting them to get an appointment?
Where did you get the list of official Ukrainian translators? Is there anything online?
My fiancé is going to request the date date for the wedding in the registry office without me. Do you have any special advice?
Yes, I literally did all the pages of the passport (38 or so???). I scanned the passport at Tesco. Got all the images. I then opened a Word document and put the images in the document at a rate of 2 scan images per page. The word document worked out to be about 5 pages or so. I then took it to a free independent Notary Solicitor and he looked at it, Signed it and Stamped it on the top page. And that was that.
DeleteI contacted the Ukrainian Consulate by Email. I went to their website and sent emails on some Email I found there. The answer came within a couple of days I think. They are busy there.
The person that answered from the consulate suggested a lady Ukrainian translator in London. So I contacted her and made arrangements with her.
The special advice for your fiance is to get there very early in the morning. When we got there, the queue was crazy so we stood in the queue with no chairs from 10AM til 15:00. Whether she can do it on her own, I don't know. In our case they wanted to see my paperwork and all the details before booking a date. So if I had to guess, I would say no, but maybe she could book a date on the condition that she will go later to present the paperwork. That is just a guess, but there is nothing stopping her from giving them a ring and explaining the situation.
We went to them on a Tuesday and booked the registry for the Thursday the same week just because I had plane tickets to show them.
Hi Andrei,
ReplyDeleteExcellent article. A couple of questions.
"Notarised copy of my Passport (I did all the pages of the passport)"
- Did you notorise only the pages with writing on? So maybe 4 pages.
- did you somehow notorise the page that is stamped?
- Did notorize the back page of your passport where you write your address?
The Ukraine Consulate have in two months never answered the phone. How did you go about contacting them to get an appointment?
Where did you get the list of official Ukrainian translators? Is there anything online?
My fiancé is going to request the date date for the wedding in the registry office without me. Do you have any special advice?