Sheker M from Turkmenistan

On March 12, a mother and daughter from Turkmenistan, from a remote village in the Lepab district – Sheker M and Gulzire - contacted us. The women had never travelled outside their village, they barely speak Russian, only a little Uzbek. They are very small and looked helpless, they were very confused and scared when we met them. It's good that my assistant Dilya knows Uzbek, we were able to understand each other

The peculiarity with the Turkmen is that there is no Israeli Embassy there and no Jewish Agency which make things more difficult for the Jewish people who want to make aliyah.  They have to travel to Uzbekistan for the consul and also for their flight to Israel.  It is inconvenient and expensive.

We met them, placed them in a hotel, fed them, arranged everything for them. They did not expect such help and support. The women live very modestly, they only had money for the road to Tashkent, so their only hope was Ezra.

After they received visas, the Jewish Agency was supposed to buy them tickets, but for some reason they were not able to buy tickets quickly. And Sheker and her daughter only had visas until March 21. This threatened them with a large fine of $3,000 and deportation. The women were in a panic. We consoled them as best we could, paid for their accommodation for a week, plus food.

In the end, the Jewish Agency realized its mistake and urgently found them tickets for the 21st. Thank God, everything was resolved, but the women were very worried, even cried.

We saw them off, helped with their bags. And two days later we received a message from them, from Israel written in the Turkmen language saying that everything was fine and that they were settling in. 

They have other relatives in Turkmenistan who are leaving, we are waiting for the rest of them to come to us in Uzbekistan!