Dr Olena Taukchi is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Glasgow School of Modern Language and Culture. She is also a refugee twice over.
In 2014, Dr Taukchi fled her home in the Donetsk region of Ukraine with only as much as she and her husband could carry: two bags, a laptop and their cat.
An English teacher, Dr Taukchi left behind a full library of books, dictionaries and research, but also many more precious and less tangible possessions.
"We left behind everything" she said. "Our home, our garden, our plans for the future. Everything was left there."
Their next step was the historic city of Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine and a former capital. Life began again, she said, even if it had its challenges.
"Being a refugee, even in your own country, is not easy. That is why, at first, the first years were just survival for us. And then we gradually started to reconstruct our financial status, but we still couldn't afford to buy a home there."
But eventually, as she had in Donetsk, Dr Taukchi soon found herself and her family once again in the crossfire of political turmoil and military invasion.
When Russia began its ground invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kharkiv – little more than 30km from the border – was a significant early target for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although Russian forces were repelled later that year after a drawn-out struggle, the city is still subject to sporadic missile fire.
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Being so near to the border, Russian artillery can reach Kharkiv in less than a minute, giving residents little warning or time to prepare for an incoming attack. Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than a quarter of the city had been destroyed.
This was Dr Taukchi's second home, meant to be a safe haven after leaving Donetsk, but she spent the better part of 2022 underground.
"It was a hard time for us because of constant air raids, and the city was subjected to daily bombings. There were no food deliveries; there was no heating, no electricity, and no tap water."
Many of Khrakiv's residents lived in the subway. Dr Taukchi and her family lived in an old building with a bunker, which is where they moved once the bombings began.
There, she and her family tried to continue life as normally as possible.
At the time, Dr Taukchi worked at a state university, and "being in the public sector, we were asked not to leave Ukraine, but to work from home."
She saw out the rest of the academic year – "being a law-abiding person, I decided not to leave" – and was able to resign in August and begin looking for a way out of Kharkiv.
When she wasn't working, Dr Taukchi used her spotty internet connection to search for an escape route, and that was how she eventually came across the website for the Council for At Risk Academics (Cara).
A UK-based charity, Cara has been helping academics facing “arrest, injury or even death” in their home countries since the 1930s.
Stumbling across the Cara website is what started Dr Taukchi on her long and sometimes frustrating journey from war-torn Kharkiv to a flat in Glasgow and a fellowship at the university.
Fully settled now with her cat that has been part of her journey since Donestk, Dr Taukchi teaches, researches and works to find a permanent place in the UK for herself and a chance to reunite with the family that has remained in Ukraine.
In addition to these responsibilities, she said she is also always available when Cara comes calling for someone to share their story.
"I'm always ready to share my story about staying here, my story about Ukraine, because my story can be an example for somebody to follow.
"Most people do not believe that it is possible to adjust and to adapt in a foreign country, and that is why they stay in Ukraine and suffer.
"That is why, to me, if I share my story to those people, they might consider leaving Ukraine and going to Europe or the UK."
As much as she knows people in trouble can be intimidated by the logistics of leaving home, she also understands that some need to flee for other reasons. She is willing to share her story, she said, because many others cannot, since doing so might put themselves or their loved ones back home in danger.
This is why Cara has to be diplomatic, meticulous and discreet about their work, said Cara executive director Stephen Wordsworth.
"Often fellows are not keen to be quoted in the media, identified publicly with photographs and so on, because these days you have no idea where it might end up. If they've got family back home or close friends, they wouldn't want to put them in danger."
Since the first efforts to help German academics flee Nazi control in the 1930s, Cara has seen constant demand for its services. That demand has only increased in recent years, with the charity reporting a 400% spike in requests over the past three years and more than 2,000 calls from academics seeking help since 2021.
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This week, Cara announced the arrival of its first fellows from Gaza, the latest global conflict to leave academics displaced and looking for somewhere safe to continue their work.
Mr Wordsworth said that the charity relies on support from individual universities and external funding, but it will always be a struggle to maximise resources while knowing that Cara cannot reach everyone.
"Wouldn't it be nice if the world was a nice place, and nobody had to get away from their home. But I'm just glad that if they need it, we can provide it. And we can only do that because of the support we get from universities, and the Scottish universities do a great job of that."
Cara is carrying out a fundraising roadshow across the UK, touring universities to build awareness of its project. The next event in Scotland will be at the University of St Andrews on October 30.
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