Romanistan

Paulina and Jez discuss the last two episodes of Foretold (episodes 8 & 9), and share their feelings on how tricky it can be to try to represent a culture, even if it’s your own story. We’re grateful for the Los Angeles Times for taking on this story and spotlighting Romani people, and we encourage everyone to read the essay series that the LA Times published to accompany the podcast series. O...

Paulina and Jez catch up on episodes 6 and 7 of the Los Angeles Times podcast series Foretold, with special attention to the backlash Paulina is getting, her boundaries, and thoughts about telling such a dramatic part of her story. We also discuss the pressure of representing all Roma, which we can't and don't claim to, and how we're handling a lot of emails. We're still really...

Jez asks Paulina and special guest Gina Merino (episode 1 of Foretold) what they think about episodes 4 and 5 of the Los Angeles Times podcast series, Foretold. We discuss traditional marriage expectations, normalized abuse, and the complexities of representation. CN: sexual abuse/ assault.  Gina Merino was born and raised in the Muchwaya Romani Vitsa. A native of Southern California, she broke fr...

In this 3rd episode of Good Morning, Romanistan! we share what's going on with us, and what's happening around the world, including Barvalo, prosperity spells gone awry, Ederlezi celebrations, kittens, and more! We suggest you check out season 1 episode 4: Ederlezi, Ivana Nikolic @roma__dancer , poet and teacher Diana Norma Szokolyai ,  50 ways to support Black Lives Matter: https://www....

In this episode of Romanistan, Paulina and Jez debrief episodes 2 & 3 of Foretold, the LA Times podcast series centered on Paulina’s life. If you haven’t heard it yet, check it out on any podcast platform. In this episode, we discuss Paulina’s early years in school and what it was like having her kindergarten abd first grade teachers interviewed, and we discuss the complicated mess of early ar...

Rowena Marin is a Romani woman, author of Who Am I in the World, and Global Agency Lead at Google, in New York. She is the co-founder of The School of Reinvention - a company meant to help people align with their passions and purpose. Rowena comes from a closed community of Silversmith Roma from Romania and managed to succeed in her career through education  based in Romania, Spain, France, India,...

As you may know, Romanistan co-host Paulina Stevens Verminski is featured in a new podcast series by the LA Times, Foretold. Jez interviews Paulina to break down the first episode and reflect on how hard it is to tell your story, particularly a complex one, and represent your culture. This is the first of what we hope are many debriefing episodes, but to make that happen, we need your help. Please...

Welcome to our second GMR episode! We talk personal and relatively current events, answer listener's questions, and pull a tarot card. Shoutouts to @anyatheodora1 , ally & Turkish bellydancer @aslirakkas , @roma__dancer , @errcinsta , Lolo Lovina , and the new podcast Foretold by the LA Times , which feature's Paulina's life story. Fundraiser for Roma and Domari in Turkey post-e...

We had such a wonderful time chatting with the sparkling Alice Psychic! For over 10 years Alice Psychic has been a noteworthy leader in the Spiritual space. You may know Alice from her work as the Psychic Next Door on social media but Alice can also be credited with contributions to the Twinflame movement, the rise in chiromancy and shedding a positive light on Romani voices and their history. Ali...

Good morning, Romanistan! Here’s our first talk show. We hope you like it. You can get the full, unedited version for $5 a month on our Patreon , or you can donate to our Ko-fi fundraiser to support us. Here are some links for you to explore! “ The Roma Artist Sewing a New History for Her People” New York Times , about artist Malgorzata Mirga-Tas “Roma Face Discrimination at Every Stage of Crminal...

Jennileen Joseph of Sastimos Holistic Health brings herself as a Rroma woman into how she approaches all aspects of herbalism and Ayurveda, encouraging people to understand healing from a lens of relationship to land and community. The stories of plants and people are intertwined, as they have grown alongside one another since time immemorial. Jennileen received her bachelor's degree from New...

Welcome to our generic winter holiday special! In this episode, we share some of our favorite seasonal traditions, with stories from Piroska, Aidan the Boujee Mystic, Katelan Foisy, and Anya! Paulina and Jez make some tarot predictions for 2023, and we share our personal intentions as well. We thank our donors for this year, and we ask you to help us raise $4,000 through our Ko-fi fundraiser to ma...

Jake, otherwise known as Kardos Cieslinski, is a life long learner and dabbler.  He grew up in between music and the trades. He worked in the coffee industry for 10 years, went to school for neuroscience which turned to film, and finally psychology. For graduate school he went to Berkeley for architecture then dropped out. He has lived in six different cities over the past 11 years, and plays drum...

We had the joy of talking with natural beauty maven Meghan Ores, owner and operator of Luludi, an all-natural online bath and body shop.  Meghan Ores is 44 and Hungarian Romani on her father's side, French and English on her mother's.  She was born in Wisconsin, but moved around alot and found her way back to Wisconsin again 2 years ago. She currently lives in Baraboo, which is known as...

Paulina & Jez interview adopted siblings Rumen & Rumyana Hulmequist about transracial adoption identity, their stories, and the activism & entrepreneurship they are engaged in now.  Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast. You can find us on Instagram @romanistanpodcast , and on Facebook under the same name, and on Twitter @romanistanpod We started a Ko-fi fundraiser to help us e...

Special for this Halloween, Jez & Paulina tell spooky stories with their friends Kiki Robinson And Ylva Mara Radziszewski from The Living Altar. Join us for ghosts in the most haunted AirBnB in Washington state, a strange creature stalking through Brooklyn's nightlife, and another dimension in Alameda California. Check out The Living Altar Oracle Deck and more at https://www.livingaltar.c...

Paulina and Jez had a terrifying good time chatting with Pierce and Raquel Horvath of Dead Scared Entertainment, a Romani-run horror media company. Detroit born and living in Chicago, Pierce and Raquel Horvath are Hungarian Slovak Bashalde Romungre raised within Roma tradition with a modern twist. Growing up, Pierce was a passionate bat biologist-to-be, but as he fostered his love for Roma music,...

Paulina and Jez interview each other about the art of dream interpretation & divination to kick off our spooky season themed episodes this October. This episode also launches the first advice column, and we invite listeners to write in with their problems, and we will pull a tarot card each and give you some advice as best we can. Take it with a grain of salt— we’re fortune tellers, not therap...

Paulina & Jez had a blast chatting with Caren Gussoff Sumption about her writing career and her latest sci-fi novella, So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion .  Caren Gussoff Sumption is a writer and editor of Romany ancestry, living near Seattle, WA. The author of 5 books and more than 100 short stories, Caren's been awarded a Hedgebrook Elizabeth George Award, the Speculative Literatu...

Paulina and Jess speak with Konstantin Shaw-Polyakov, who recently released his album, Where Are We Headed? Konstantin is a Roma/Ashkenazi multi-instrumentalist and songwriting transracial adoptee. He was born in Volkhov Russia in June of 1996, moved to an orphanage and adopted in 1997 by Quakers from America. Konstantin grew up with an adoptive name, Matthew, and few clues of his Roma heritage. I...

In this episode, we end the tattoo series... for now! Paulina and Jess interview Meesha Ratzlaff, a multidisciplinary Romani tattoo artist based out of Vancouver, BC., Canada. Meesha’s personal works are largely based and reminiscent of renaissance imagery and architecture, paying homage to her motherland and heritage of the Czech Republic. As a tattooer, she is exploring ways to connect themes of...

In this episode, Paulina and Jess talk with Priya Kaur Handa, our international relations (gadje/non-Romani) guest about the traditional roots of tattooing as a sacred or healing practice, and her work as an intuitive tattoo artist. Priya is a tattoo artist based out of Brooklyn, New York. Born and raised in the Bay Area, California, Priya grew up with the influences of the Bay Area art scene alon...

Wes is a tattoo artist living in New Orleans, Louisiana, working at Hell or High Water Tattoo. Growing up in Kansas he relied heavily on the library and a mentor to learn about painting, often bringing home stacks of books he’d study instead of his schoolwork. He decided to devote his life to “low-brow” art after realizing how accessible, practical and human it felt. Once getting written up for dr...

In this episode, Paulina and Jess chat with tattoo artist Amelia Hearts as part of our tattoo artist series. Amelia Hearts currently lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and specializes in multiple tattoo styles from realism to neotraditional, watercolor, and illustrative. She has been tattooing for 13 years, and absolutely loves it. She’s currently tattooing at Sacred Soul Collective . You can book...

In this bonus episode we ask, is America really number 1? Find out what we mean. CW: Gun violence Take a look at https://linkin.bio/everytown to get involved.  Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast. You can find us on Instagram @romanistanpodcast , and on Facebook under the same name, and on Twitter @romanistanpod We started a Ko-fi fundraiser to help us expand. Our goal is to release 2 ep...