Balkan Sis

Mum and Dad Off Duty: Life With a Balkan Firecracker, Wog Weddings and Leaving the Kids My husband is back on Balkan Sis! We recorded this one in the car on the drive home from Sydney to the Gold Coast. It's a little road trip episode from two parents who finally got a weekend off duty. We went down for the wedding of Nicole and Nuno. Nicole was on the podcast a few episodes ago. She is the produc...

She married young, got her doctorate, helped her community and ticked every box. And she lost herself completely. This week on Balkan Sis, I sit down with Dr Sara Kuburić, existential psychotherapist, author of It's On Me, and the voice 1.7 million people know as the Millennial Therapist. Born in the time of Yugoslavia and raised in Canada, Sara lived through the bombings as a child and spent...

Pt. 2 | Aleksandra Alavanja, Domestic Violence Advocate: “Why Didn’t I Leave?” What Repair Really Takes Content warning: This episode discusses domestic and family violence, physical assault, strangulation, alcohol and suicide. Please look after yourself. Part 2 is about what happened, and what came after. Aleksandra Alavanja shares the night her life imploded, the community pile-on that followed,...

Pt. 1 | Aleksandra Alavanja, Domestic Violence Advocate: "I Spent 20 Years Protecting Women. Then It Happened To Me." Content warning: This episode discusses domestic and family violence, pregnancy loss and suicidal thoughts. Please look after yourself. Some conversations our families never had out loud. This is one of them. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Ivana sits down with A...

What We Carry: War Photographer Mark Milstein on Vukovar, Sarajevo, and the War That Never Really Leaves AI and technology get a lot of bad press, so this week I wanted to share a story that softens some of that. On June 17th, 1993, behind Sarajevo's main train station, photojournalist Mark Milstein photographed a young man moments after he was hit by sniper fire. A soldier ran through gunfire...

"Be Strong": The Lie Every Diaspora Kid Was Raised On | Growing Up Balkan with Frankie What was it really like growing up in the Balkans in the '80s and '90s? In this flashback episode, recorded in 2022, I sit down with my OG Balkan Sis and best friend since primary school, Frankie, to go back to where it all began: how we were raised, and how that childhood still shows up in who...

Pt. 2: "We'll Talk About Our Dreams, Never Our Feelings" Verone Percuku on Her Thesis, Sleep Hygiene, and Why the Balkans Fear Therapy Part two with Verone goes deeper into her actual thesis, Psychological and Cultural Dimensions of Dreams in the Balkans , why she chose the region, what the small Kosovo-based sample revealed, and why she's careful never to overclaim from a study this size. The dom...

Pt. 1: “I Dreamt a War I Never Lived” The Dreams You Inherit: Verone Percuku on Growing Up After Kosovo’s War Episode Description This week I sit down with Verone Percuku, a Clinical and Community Psychology graduate from the University of Prishtina. Verone was born in Vushtrri, Kosovo in 2000, just after the war ended, the youngest of four. She used to dream about the war, soldiers in the backyar...

This is a flashback episode — one close to my heart — with the OG Balkan Sis, Frankie, the friend who started Balkan Sis with me back when it was just the two of us. We talk about something every Balkan woman knows intimately: body shaming, the obsession with being skinny, and the "feedback" that comes with simply existing in — or being from — the Balkans. It kicks off with my own story:...

This week on Balkan Sis, I sit down with Drita Haziraj — a woman who has lived about five lifetimes in one. Drita survived the siege of Sarajevo as a teenager, spent decades as a radio and TV journalist in Bosnia (Radio Free Europe, Radio Stari Grad, Radio FERN, Radio BiH), and in 2004 created and hosted Naša Realnost (Our Reality), a humanitarian TV show that raised hundreds of thousands of dolla...

Today's guest is a scientist and a mum who got sick of the same thing most of us have felt scrolling parenting Instagram at 2am. Everyone with an opinion, nobody with a source. Violeta Gordeljevic, parenting science expert, spent years working in public health for governments and global organisations before she had her own baby and realised nobody was translating any of that research for paren...

What Will People Think? I get real about the pressure of being judged, why I nearly skipped recording this episode, and how that inner doubt connects to community, identity, and showing up anyway. I also answer listener questions about navigating Balkan identity, cultural expectations, and staying true to yourself in a Western environment. In this episode, I share why I'm doubling down on the Balk...

PT 2: KATRINA RISTESKA — MILENA IN GIA: A WOG CHICK COMEDY, MOTHERHOOD, AND MAKING IT AS A STAR Part two of our Gia special brings us face to face with Katrina Risteska, the actress bringing Milena Petrovski to chaotic, big hearted life. Katrina's been on our screens for over fifteen years, starting in musical theatre at seven years old in shows like Annie, The Wizard of Oz and Oliver at Sydne...

EPISODE ONE — Nicole Stojanovska on Creating Gia: A Wog Chick Comedy This week on Balkan Sis, I'm sitting down with Nicole Stojanovska, the Horsley-raised, Macedonian and Italian filmmaker behind Gia: A Wog Chick Comedy, a nine-episode comedy web series putting wog women at the centre of the story for the first time in decades. Made under her production company Parthenope Pictures, Gia follows Gia...

The Diaspora Cup 2026: Anthems, Passion & Everything In Between this episode is a bit different. instead of the usual chaos of my family, i pulled together some incredible voices from across the diaspora to talk about what this world cup actually means to us. Dr Selma — clinical psychologist, neuroscientist and trauma specialist based in Melbourne, joins to unpack the psychology of why we feel...

80th Birthday Special: Strina Slavica Strbac (HR) This episode is recorded entirely in Croatian (HR), because that is how Strina Slavica talks, thinks, and has lived her whole life. If you don't speak Croatian, stay with us anyway, you will still feel everything in her voice. This one is different from anything we have done before. This is a dedication to Strina Slavica's children, grandchildren a...

In this episode, Ivana sits down with migration lawyer, author, and former refugee Adam Khaze for a wide ranging conversation about his own story, his family, and the realities of Australia's immigration system. In this episode: Adam's family's escape from Iran as Bahá'ís facing religious persecution, the journey through Pakistan, and resettling in Perth as refugees Growing up betw...

Today's episode is a full one. life has been full. we open with a birthday. sretan rođendan mama. 67 years old, a pensioner at last, and the most selfless woman i know. this episode is dedicated to you. but it's been a mixed bag since we last spoke, and i wanted to come on and share all of it with you. the joy, the grief, and everything in between. we talk about little Tessa, who lost her...

BALKAN SIS PODCAST @balkansispodcast | @ivanastrbacalfonso Martina Dimoska: The Girl Who Was Never Asked What She Wanted to Be EPISODE DESCRIPTION This week Ivana sits down with Martina Dimoska, a Macedonian from Kicevo in North Macedonia who became the first female Balkan analog astronaut in the world. She has commanded missions simulating life on the Moon and Mars, run operations inside subsurfa...

This one came straight from the heart with zero script and zero filter. After an article Ivana wrote for Croatia Weekly went unexpectedly viral (close to 400 comments and counting), she jumped straight into the mic to talk about what happens when you put yourself out there the good, the bad, and the absurd. In this episode Ivana covers the Croatia Weekly article and the title that set the internet...

Melissa Pizovic grew up in the south of France as the only person in the room who did not speak the language. Her father, Bosnian-Croatian, never taught her. At family gatherings surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins all speaking Croatian and Bosnian, she needed a translator. In her own family. She found her way back through the skin. After seven years studying architecture and four years in Par...

Happy Mother's Day to every single woman who has ever stood at a kitchen bench, packed a lunchbox, cooked for her family and made it all look effortless. This one is for you. This Mother's Day I am sitting down with one of the most recognised food creators in Australia — George Georgievski, known across the world as the School Lunchbox Dad. George is Macedonian-Australian, a father of two...

Cheers to being different. Cheers to not being mainstream. Sisters, this episode is one I have been sitting with since we recorded it and I genuinely cannot wait for you to hear it. My guest today is Tamara Peklic, a cross-cultural coach based in America who spent 15 years figuring out what happens when you take your culture somewhere that does not understand you, and then built a whole career hel...

In this powerful and heartfelt episode of Balkan Sis , Ivana sits down with Croatian-born Human Design and Feng Shui practitioner Petra Bezić for a conversation that is equal parts emotional, healing and eye-opening. Together, they explore what it means to come back to yourself after years of conditioning, people pleasing, overthinking and living by everyone else’s rules. Petra breaks down Human D...

Books, Babies, Balkan Roots & Big Feelings: A Raw Solo Catch-Up on Life, Legacy & What’s Next - The Life You’re Building While You’re Still Healing Hey sis 🤍 This is a real, unscripted catch-up episode — no guest, no script, just life lately. From Easter and family moments to big personal milestones, ancestry, motherhood, and building something meaningful in real time… this episode is a r...