Baba Vanga was very happy when people were coming to visit because of her – to ask her how is she, what problems she has, etc. Hundreds of people were coming each day, just to ask about their personal problems and health issues. Besides her extraordinary skills, Baba Vanga was an ordinary person like the rest of us who was happy when there was attention around her. For so many years, she gave so much to thousands of people, yet very few were the people that came to personally help her, hear her out what she needs, or what difficulties she is facing. She really needed this human presence around her, in her otherwise lonely world.
Outside of her phenomenal lifestyle, Baba Vanga lived a very simple life. She loved to get together with her friends, to socialize, to be a good housewife that was very strict about cleanness and order, and to be a dedicated mother of her two adopted children. It is wrongly perceived by some people that Baba Vanga was ascetic. On the contrary she loved to live – she liked to dress well, liked to eat different foods, she liked to have a sip of Anis and whiskey, and she was a good singer and dancer.
Baba Vanga was proverbial with her cleanness. She didn’t let anybody to come inside her house with his shoes on. If someone did that, she always sensed it and yelled at him that he/she should go out immediately.
The cleanness and goodness in people, were taking a special place in Baba Vanga’s heart. We have seen her truly mad when a bad, envious, greedy, or mean person had come for a reading. Very often she would directly tell such people that they are not good, and would ask them to leave her house. After all she was reacting mostly to people with bad spiritual qualities, rather than physical ones.
Baba Vanga didn’t eat everything people gave her as a gift. If it was homemade, it had to be prepared by a person with positive thoughts and clean hands. If it was brought to her because of obligation to bring something, or with negative thoughts, she was throwing the food in the garbage. Maybe Baba Vanga was sensing whether the food was prepared with positive or negative energy.
For Baba Vanga’s husband – Dimitar Gushterov, I can only say that I remember him as being a good man. He was very docile, quiet, and humble. Yes he became an alcoholic, but he was never aggressive. There were those rumours in Petrich that Dimitar Gushterov became an alcoholic because of the phenomenal skills of Baba Vanga. He told some of his friends, that he didn’t have a wife – he had a prophetess in his home. Baba Vanga was very strict with Dimitar – whatever she said, this is what was happening. She was quite authoritative I must say. The only thing she couldn’t ask him to do was to stop drinking. Apparently she knew that he will die from cirrhosis on his liver, and was trying to prevent that. But as she often would tell her visitors, everybody has his written destiny that you follow until the end of your life. Destiny does not give forgiveness to anybody.
When I stopped by to see Baba Vanga, she always started the conversation by asking me how are the kids. She was the Godmother of my daughter and my granddaughter, and she loved them very much. In fact she loved all children. There was something very touching in her behaviour when people gave their children to Baba Vanga so she hold them for a while. It was really hard to explain – her face would brighten up, with a big smile that felt like as if it was radiating light. Baba Vanga had a “halo” on her head when there were children around her.
Baba Vanga was a very sincere and warm-hearted person. She was very honest with people, and rarely she saved something that she needed to say about someone – even his weaknesses. Only those people that didn’t know her well, would think that she was rude. Sometimes she used her loud voice, as a tool to send a bad person away, or person that is wasting her time.
With her closest friends that were about 20 people from Petrich, she was very kind and polite. Even if she had a quarrel with some with us, we knew that she was doing it for good, and we never got insulted or mad at her. We were so comfortable around her, that whenever we had a hardship on our shoulders (even an insignificant one) we went to Baba Vanga to share our problem and ask for advice, and guidance. She was always ready to welcome us – we were her “air-vent”. She never sent me back when I went to see her – she always had time for me. Sometimes when I had to wait in front of her house so I see her, she would come out and personally call me to come in.
All those people that were coming for readings and advices were making Baba Vanga very exhausted. She really needed to relax, but her phenomenal gift did not give her much opportunities for that. Even when all of us gathered together for a celebration, and Baba Vanga was this ordinary woman equal with us, I always had a great respect from her presence. I visited her as if she was a Saint, and I was very submissive in front of her. No matter how well she predisposed us, all of her friends including myself were feeling differently when communication with Baba Vanga.
Zheni Kostadinova graduated Philosophy at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She has worked as an editor at the student TV show “Ku-Ku”, and as a reporter at the National Radio “Horizon”. For over 15 years she is a columnist at “Weekly Trud” newspaper writing about esoteric and psychology. In the same newspaper she is maintaining a page on literature. Zheni Kostadinova is the author of some of the most popular books written on Baba Vanga including “Baba Vanga The Prophetess”, “Baba Vanga Predictions”, “The Secret of Baba Vanga”. Her first book was translated into Russian, Polish, Latvian, Serbian, and Albanian. Zheni is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. She had published three books of poetry: “Fire Sticks (2002), “17 love colors” (2007), and “Fig Jam” (2008). In 2012 Zheni has founded the art-house “Kuklite”. It is a doll gallery and a mini-museum located in the old downtown of Sofia. The gallery exhibits different dolls placed in specific categories. Besides the exhibitions, the art-house “Kuklite” also have the priority to work with children from the local schools, so they learn more about the traditions and customs of the different nations. The main idea is to transform the art-house “Kuklite” into a centre for cultural exchange, creative collaboration between representatives of different fields of art, science and philosophy. The art-house will hold meetings with interesting personalities, and will be a place of exhibitions, seminars, workshops, premieres of books and documentary movies, puppetry, and many other great events. The art-house “Kuklite” will also be a place where collectors can display their favourite artefacts and can share the history associated with them.
