Kokoro is a partnership between three of us. But like most partnerships, it started with just one person — and a pull that couldn't quite be explained.
I'm Irina, a translator, essayist, yoga teacher, and a traveler — geographically, and in every other sense too. I've always been drawn to different cultures, to human nature, to the beauty that lives in our differences as much as in what we share.
Montenegro and India are the two countries I feel the strongest connection to, and the two I most want you to experience with us. Each, in its own way, helps unfold the story you already hold within — physically, mentally, emotionally. Here's how each of them found me.
The first time I arrived in India, something in me recognized it. I can't fully explain it — only that when I'm there, I feel more like myself than almost anywhere else. My heart rejoices. The noise quiets. Something in me comes home.
That feeling sent me back again and again. I studied yoga here. I traveled — mostly through the south — following instinct more than any guidebook, and slowly, patiently, I found the places that never make it onto a map: a Vedic village where Ayurveda is still just how people live, not a wellness trend; a quiet stretch of coast where the only sound is the tide; small guesthouses run by people who cook for you the way they'd cook for family.
I didn't set out to build a retreat. I set out to understand a country that had already, somehow, understood me. The retreat came later — born from a simple, stubborn wish: to share these places, exactly as I found them, with anyone who feels a similar pull toward India but doesn't know where to begin.
I didn't choose Montenegro. Montenegro chose me.
In 2007, the head of the company I worked for in Moscow was starting a new business in Montenegro, and asked me to run it. The sea has always been a source of life energy for me, and I had long dreamed of living by the coast. I said yes and quietly gave myself one year. That was eighteen years ago.
The working project itself lasted only three years — since 2010, I've worked independently, as a translator and copywriter. But Montenegro never let go. I've met many people over the years, from many different countries, who came to see this place once and are, in some sense, still looking. There's something here that resists easy explanation — something that holds you, and doesn't quite release you.
They say Montenegro's wild, dramatic nature shows you exactly what you need to see. It's the same quality that connects this land to India. Here, everything reveals itself quickly, and the response comes without waiting.
I'd be glad to show you my Montenegro — not the version in a guidebook, but the one I know from the heart: the places even most Montenegrins rarely reach, because they're hard to find, or hard to get to.
We all met in India — each of these partnerships beginning separately, and each beginning the same way: quickly, unmistakably, the way meetings sometimes happen there, where recognition seems to arrive before introduction, as though we'd known each other before.
Kokoro is not one person's venture. It's a partnership, in equal parts, between three of us:
Isabelle Heili guides the Art & Creativity Program in Montenegro's From the Canvas Outside to the Canvas Within and in India's Art & Sea retreat. She arrived in Kannur from Tiruvannamalai — Irina's own next stop on that same journey, both of them drawn there by Ramana Maharshi and the mountain Arunachala.
French, with a degree in Art History from the Sorbonne (Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) and further training in fashion design, pattern cutting, and garment construction in Mallorca. She has managed an art gallery, taught drawing and painting to students of every age, and designed and developed her own garment collections — a career that has always moved fluidly between fine art, teaching, and craft, much like the workshops she leads today.
Giovanna Bube Casali guides the Ayurveda & Sea Program. From Italy, she carries a natural sense of beauty and an abiding love of life in its many forms. Having lived across different countries and cultures, she found her own connection to India — one that deepened, over the years, into a particular tie to Varkala, and an unwavering love for the sea that lives there.
Russian, a traveler by nature, and the one whose own pull toward Montenegro and India (told above) became the starting point for all of this. Irina guides the yoga, energy, and meditation practice across every retreat.
Russian, French, Italian — a kaleidoscope of cultures, enriching each other. It echoes the very nature of Montenegro and India themselves: many colors, many textures, each turn revealing something new, always the same light passing through.
We are looking forward to sharing our love for those special places and traveling the inner and outer landscapes with you.