Story told by Vladimir Bondarenko – Ukrainian journalist and political scientist
I have met Baba Vanga twice – the first time was in 1972 when I was still in second grade. Unfortunately I couldn’t see her, as I was blind at this time. In the same year me and my parents moved from Koblevo to Herson. I started a new school. Everything was going well until the day when an older student from my school beat me very badly. I had a terrible headache for a couple of days, and then I started to lose my eyesight gradually. My eye doctor prescribed me to wear glasses, and told me not to strain my eyesight. All this sounded like a sentence to me. I loved reading, and I didn’t stop with hours. I loved reading the books of Mayne Reid, Jack London, Cooper Green…Hiding from my mother, using a flashlight I was reading these books under my blanket for whole nights. My disease was getting worse, and even doctors in Moscow started to show signs of helplessness. They were telling me that there isn’t much else they can do, as atrophy had developed on my optic nerve. They offered to sign the papers that will give me the disability status. For a 10 year child, that was a very heavy blow. Very soon, I completely lost my eyesight. I had the feeling that my life had ended. I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t play with the other kids on the street. I went into deep depression lying on my bed for hours.
This is when my mother started to take me to fortune-tellers and mystics. Unfortunately all these meetings were a waste of time, but nevertheless my mother didn’t give up. She had heard about Baba Vanga and decided to take me to Bulgaria to visit her.
My mother took two packets of butter from her factory where she worked as an accountant. Infront of Baba Vanga’s house there was a huge line up. My mother gave her present to the security guard who was assisting Baba Vanga with the visits. Shortly after we were called to come in. On the window a young lady appeared who said: “Bring the boy who could see well, and now he is having an endless night.” We entered into the house, and my mother started crying, and falling on her knees she started to beg Baba Vanga for help.
Baba Vanga said that I was the first-born child, and that I was named after my mother’s deceased brother. Suddenly I felt how my eyes were touched by warm female hands. Baba Vanga was whispering something above me, and then she said: “You are like me. You will see not only what is close, but also what is far”. I had the feeling that a lighting hit my eyes, and all of a sudden I gained the confidence that I will see again!
This is exactly what happened. The constant night gradually started to become a gray darkness with vague contours of the objects. Just few days later I started to see clearer. In the very beginning I didn’t tell my mother the truth. I was afraid that this improvement of my eyesight was temporary and the black night will come again. When we got off the train in Kiev, I could almost see perfectly, but I still didn’t say a word about it. Not until when we got home I told my mother: “Why did you pour the milk in the green bowl and not in my favorite blue one?” She dropped her grocery bag, and with shivering hands she hugged me and started crying.
Right on the next day we went to see an ophthalmologist for a check up, and he couldn’t believe this miracle. Few weeks after my visit to Baba Vanga, my eyesight completely restored!
Article Source:
http://www.blitz.bg/article/43646
Interview taken by:
Yana Boadzhieva