The RM Show

Raykhon sits down with her old friend Larisa Pak, a marketing specialist and the creative force, one of Kazakhstan's most prolific cultural producers. What starts as a warm catch-up between two women who go way back quickly turns into a candid conversation about the joy and the cost of following your passion. Larisa shares the bittersweet story of her gourmet popcorn business, a labour of love...

In recent years, Kazakhstan has been experiencing a linguistic awakening. A country as vast as the whole of Western Europe. A country I love — and where I began my career as a foreign correspondent. In this episode I speak to Suinbike Suleymenova, a visual artist and filmmaker from Almaty. She spent three decades not speaking her own language. Then she made a film about it. МАМБЕТ: Тіл мәселесі —...

Sevara Nazarkhan is the Uzbek diva - her music is adored by millions of fans in her native Uzbekistan and around the world. She is the national treasure of Uzbekistan. She started in a girl’s band in the late 1990s and then went solo earning international recognition after teaming up with singer songwriter Peter Gabriel. In this episode of The RM Show we talk about the turning points in Sevara’s c...

Genia Mineeva is a fashion entrepreneur who started out as a journalist before having a change of heart. Genia's exciting career path took her from empowering social entrepreneurs to confronting climate change with her award winning brand BEEN London. We discuss the circular economy, how to make beauty from waste, and how Genia pursued her passion despite the challenges of family and career.

This week my guest is Nana Dikhaminjia - she is a maths guru and tech entrepreneur who runs cyber camps for girls. We talk about how globally there are still not enough women in tech. Nana's mission is to educate a generation of girls to change the status quo. We discuss how Nana survived the Georgian-Abkhaz war in the 1990s, the importance of maths in early education and how tech solutions ca...

Pavlina Pavlova is a cyber policy and diplomacy specialist whose research focuses on online threats to women and other vulnerable groups. Pavlina was a nominee for International Cyber Security Woman of the World Award, her passion is to translate cyber threats into policies that offer safer online spaces. We discuss gender disinformation and how advances of Artificial Intelligence are creating thr...

Baia Pataraia is a leading women’s rights activist in Georgia. Her organisation Sapari provides legal support to hundreds of women every year. It is the kind of NGO that is being targeted by Georgia’s “foreign agents” law protested by tens of thousands of people for weeks. We talk about Baia’s passion for theatre, how she found her voice as a feminist, and what role women can play in Georgia’s cur...

My guest today is Liza Zhvania, she the organiser of arts and culture events, her father was a Georgian Prime Minister who famously coined the phrase "I am Georgian therefore I am European". Liza, has been among tens of thousands of Georgians protesting in the streets of Tbilisi angry and worried that their government is turning its back on Europe. We discuss the events in Georgia and Li...

My guest today is Isabella Emborg, a wonderful and wise 18 year old who has agreed to share her story about her life with cancer. Isabella has been through a lot of treatment both in Georgia and Denmark but ultimately decided that enough was enough. We talk about what Denmark and Georgia can learn from one another about how they provide cancer care for children. And how to bring light and love to...

My guest this week is Shobana Cooke, she is the holistic medicine practitioner whom I met during my recent trip to the magical island of Sri Lanka. We talk about the luxury of being able to follow our true calling, and how it depends on the support of other people in our lives. And how in our fast paced technology driven world biology, especially for women, dictates its own terms, 

Tamuna Museridze is the founder of Vedzeb “I am searching” - an organisation helping people search for their missing relatives. It has hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook. Tamuna helped to uncover a shocking baby trafficking scandal involving thousands of babies stolen at birth that was taking place in Georgia over decades. Tamuna has so far helped more than 700 people reunite in emotio...

Mariam Chachia is a Georgian documentary filmmaker, whose latest movie Magic Mountain made together with her partner Nik Voight won international recognition but was censored in Georgia. Mariam is both a tuberculosis and cancer survivor. We talk about her experience, and about the challenges of being a female documentary filmmaker in Georgia. 

Maka Chkhaidze is an actress, social psychologist and the founder of an inclusive dance company Inform. Her organisation opens the stage for people with disabilities to perform alongside able bodied dancers. Maka talks about how she combined her inner calling to help others with her passion for theatre, breaking social taboos in her home country of Georgia.

This podcast is about women who have discovered their true calling and I am one of them! I explain who I am and why I decided to launch this podcast.

Marika Kandelaki, is a Georgian born American artist, sculptor & designer, co-founder of Untitled in Motion. This brand offers clothing made out of fabrics with colourful prints and designs created by Marika. There is so much baldness, fun and joy! We dive into Marika's story of leaving her native Georgia at the age of 16 for the USA, learning the nitty-gritty of the fashion design industr...

Audrey Bogini has given up her career as an engineer at the European Space Launch to pursue her true passion - horse riding. She set up her company  @caucasusexpedition  offering horse riding tours in Tusheti, a remote mountanous region in northeast Georgia. Audrey became a mother for the first time at the age of 44, and is now working to set up a pony club for kids. We talk about Audrey’s incredi...

Betsy Haskell is a legendary lady who set up the very first private hotel in the 1990's gangster ridden Tbilisi. Today, the Georgian capital is among the safest European cities with hotels practically in every corner. But when Betsy first came to war-torn Georgia, there were simply no safe places to stay. Betsy remembers meeting the first president of independent Georgia who, as she said, did...