Tolk
The studio I co-founded in 2022. Nine documentary audio series of our own and a label of more than 30 independent podcasts.
About the studio
Gulnaz Ratu
Journalist, producer, host, and facilitator. Co-founder and CEO of Tolk, a studio for podcasts and audio projects.
Based in Berlin
The question
If you are holding my card, I asked you a question. If you found this page another way, here is one for you too.
You can keep the answer to yourself or send it to me. I like hearing different takes, and sometimes they turn into a collaboration.
Selected work4 projects
Who Is in the Room?
An audio mosaic from the Frankfurter Buchmesse: what happens to a voice when censorship stops silencing and starts shouting louder.
Listen
USA Lost
Two sons of immigrant families drive through Cancer Alley, Angola Prison, and Jackson, Mississippi, asking what the American Dream means on its margins.
Open the projectNot Enough
My essay for PEN International’s Tomorrow Club on Bashkir identity, emigration, and being told you are “not enough.”
Read the essayInvite me as8 roles
Host
I interview people and host my own podcasts and shows, narrative and conversational: (Ab)road, a podcast about diaspora and the search for home, and shows on Radio Golos Berlina.
Facilitator / moderator / program director
I run workshops, moderate panel discussions, and help organize events. I have built educational programs, including as head of education at Tolk. Most recently: the “Media & Technology” workshop on Utøya, at WEXFO 2025.
Producer
Nine documentary audio series at Tolk, a label of more than 30 independent podcasts, and creative campaigns.
Curator
Sound installations, art collaborations, and campaigns for brands.
Author
Essays and audio documentaries on migration, identity, and belonging. “Not Enough,” an essay for PEN International’s Tomorrow Club.
Mentor
With WAN-IFRA, I mentor independent media teams in Brave Media, a program led by BBC Media Action.
Creative consultant
I have launched projects of my own, and I understand both the media agenda and what a business needs. I develop strategy and creative concepts and help run programs.
Speaker
Frankfurter Buchmesse 2026, Global Stage: “What’s their take? Young Voices from Around the World.” WEXFO 2025, main stage.
About
I’m Gulnaz Ratu, a journalist and producer from Bashkortostan, living in Berlin. I co-founded Tolk, a studio for documentary audio and podcasts, and I host shows and run workshops. Most of my projects begin with a question I can’t stop thinking about. If you have one too, or just want to say hi, let’s stay in touch.
Gulnaz Ratu has worked in media and branded content for more than ten years. She is co-founder and CEO of Tolk, a Berlin studio that makes documentary audio and branded podcasts and runs a label of more than 30 independent podcasts in Russian, English, and German. Before Tolk she was Chief Business Development Officer at Topface Media, where her team of more than 20 people made campaigns for P&G, McDonald’s, L’Oréal, and Land Rover, and in 2022 she was Head of Digital Media at MSD. She takes a project from the brief to the finished series and finds the people who should tell the story.
Gulnaz Ratu is a journalist and documentarian from Bashkortostan, Russia, based in Berlin. She co-founded Tolk, a studio whose documentary audio gets people who rarely hear each other to listen for a while. Her work keeps returning to migration, identity, and loneliness. She hosts (Ab)road, a podcast about diaspora and the search for home; one of its episodes was nominated for the Redkollegia journalism award. With WAN-IFRA she mentors independent media teams in Brave Media, a program led by BBC Media Action. She ran the “Media & Technology” workshop at WEXFO 2025 on Utøya and made the 2025 audio documentation of the Frankfurter Buchmesse for its Young Voices Network. She studied journalism at Saint Petersburg State University and trained at the New York Film Academy.
Contact
ratu@tolk.earth
More from the studio: tolk.studio/projects