Krasimira Stoyanova is born in Sandanski in 1949. She is one of the nephews of Baba Vanga. She graduates Sofia University majoring in Turkish philology in 1972. Later she completed Egyptology and Syriology at New Bulgarian University. For a couple of years, she is the chief editor of the morning programme in Nova TV.
How do you feel as being one of the nephews of Baba Vanga?
From a personal stand point, we are used to that. Both my brother and my sister. The feeling of something phenomenal is created by the people that were coming to visit my aunt. When you are born and raised nearby such a great phenomenon, you barely realize and see it.
Did this help you in any way, or on the contrary it did harm you?
Baba Vanga was a burdensome in the most positive sense of the words. Even now when we are mature people, we still have too many “restraints” on simple things in life – things like personal behaviour, compassion, understanding, and especially patience. On one hand you have a very famous aunt, you are known by many people, and write and tell stories. At the same time you always have those restraints in your mindset. It is such a long-lasting mark on me and my family, that even today you don’t cross the border line.
Is this being learned during childhood, or it was more actively taught years later?
When we were more mature ofcourse. When we were kids, we were accepting Baba Vanga as an ordinary aunt with all of her skills, and all of the people that she was accepting and helping. Our classmates were much more astonished than me and my siblings were. Years later I gradually started to realize what she was, and why all those people were coming to see her. I have had long conversations with Baba Vanga reagarding the Bible, God, for the essence of the human being as a spiritual creature. For the skills of this human being to read the signs – something that I continue to learn. Baba Vanga often used to say: “You always wait for the miracle to happen, something to happen, or someone to come and do it for you, because you don’t see or can’t see and read the signs.” This is a big secret. By saying reading the signs, Baba Vanga meant some indicators, symbols, which are not even in the field of visible things.
Is this what you “inherited” from your aunt for your future?
Yes, to be able to read the signs. For some of them I have the necessary concentration and attention. For example for the societal processes in Bulgaria – these are little bits, which if you can identify and accumulate – you put the puzzle pieces together for something big that relates to the time you live in. These are events and things that just happen, but you haven’t noticed them. Another commonly used expression by Baba Vanga was: “You have eyes to see, but you don’t see anything.” This amalgam in which on one hand you have your family and work, and on the other hand you have everything else that is in the field of the spiritual, and non-material matter, leads to a bifurcation. Such contradictions are only understood with strong concentration and personal internal fight. For me that is closely tied to your childhood, and I can’t just ignore it – it’s inside you. Very often I ask myself the question should I had to be so strict with the people I work with, or if I was a little more patient, and show more understanding, maybe it would have been different. This constant burden of doubt is not really easy to deal with.
You are a literary woman, you have four books on Baba Vanga, and now you are writing your fifth. Are there facts, situations, and secrets around your aunt that you still have revealed to your readers? If yes, do you have plans to tell everyone about the unknown in your aunt’s life?
Yes, I have a great secret but I don’t have the necessary courage to start writing about it, and to tell people about it.
Is it again personal contradictions and hesitation?
No, I just don’t have the knowledge at this point in time to understand those secrets. I am afraid not to distort Baba Vanga’s own words. I don’t want to become a biased person. I have a lot of notes for my aunt which I would read over and over again, and I still feel that I am not ready to carry on. For everything that is not seen, but is happening. For example what are humans in their essence, what is God, what is the religion, what is this world that we can’t see, and others. Baba Vanga knew the answers to those questions.
Are Bulgarians ready for such a book? Is the Bulgarian reader wise and mature enough for it?
This is the main question. Not only the Bulgarian, is the human of the 21 century ready for such a book? Another big subject is the predictions that Baba Vanga made for Bulgaria – for the big changes that await the country. She often said that our country won’t get better if the Bulgarian does not start to change from the inside out. Something else, if people don’t realize themselves that they need to change, mother nature, the cosmos, will force humans to do that. My sister lives in Greece, and is telling how the Greeks are very selfish, very materialistic, and hate Bulgarians. Here is the big Earthquake in Athens, that happened. Many of those people started to change their mindset in hours. Suddenly the big pain and loss united them. Some have become more careful and polite with one another, merciful, selfless. There is no other way but this for the whole humanity. Baba Vanga had said: “If a person does not understand that if he steals, lies, creates intrigues, and he is the only one that knows that, yet people are respecting his socio status and personality, there is no way for a society to thrive.”
Do you think that Baba Vanga is a pure Bulgarian emanation, and do you think there is a symbolic meaning of the fact that she appeared in Bulgaria specifically?
Yes there is. There is nothing accidental – she really loved these lands including Strumitza ofcourse, her home town. Baba Vanga told us that Bulgaria is a blessed country, and it wasn’t by a chance why she was born here. There are many spirituals leaders born in Bulgaria – take Peter Deunov, Cyril and Methodius, among others.
