The Fascinating Life of Bulgarian Prophetess "Auntie Vanga"

Vangelia Gushterova was born on 31 January 1911 and died on 11 August 1996. She was a blind peasant/clairvoyant, and was venerated throughout Bulgaria as "Aunt" or "Granny" Vanga. She was born in neighboring Macedonia and is generally thought to have gained her powers after she lost her sight in a windstorm when she was 12 years old-although some place the start of her abililities earlier. During World War II Vanga's reputation as a seeress increased greatly when Bulgaria's King Boris III paid her a visit. On 10 May 1942 Vanga married Dimitar Gushterov, who had come to her to find out about his brother's killers but he promised not to extract revenge. Her husband eventually died of alcoholism in 1962. Vanga claimed that her extraordinary powers were bestowed upon her by invisible creatures. She wasn't able to explain much about them including their origin. She said that the creatures gave her information about people, which she was then able to convey because time and space were just an illusion. According to Vanga, the life of everyone standing in front of her was like a film from birth to death. H0wever, changing "what is written on the generation" was beyond her powers.

Most of Vanga's predictions concerned "normal" people's lives. She is thought to have hidden some extremely sad or hurtful information at times because it not only made her sad but she didn't think the man or woman could bear it. Vanga is known to have been rude to people whom she considered bad or sinful. The guilty person's actions were usually exposed by her in detail before she sent the "evil" person away. This aspect of her personality becomes very interesting in light of some of the company she advised or predicted for. Among these people are Soviet reformer and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, Russian nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Bulgarian Communist Pary General Secretary Todor Zhivkov. It is Zhivkov I will focus on briefly. Todor Zhivkov ruled Bulgaria from March 1954 to November 10, 1989-his rule ended the day after the Berlin Wall came down. He was by far ( except for Hungarian Communist Party boss Janos Kadar, who came to power with the aid of Soviet tanks in 1956 and left politics in 1988) the longest serving communist bloc leader. Todor Zhivkov was known to change his political views on a dime which could have explained his longevity. Zhivkov survived the Stalinist years, the Sino-Soviet split, Khrushchev's overthrow in 1964, an attempted coup in 1965, his daughter Lyudmila's death in 1981 (of which there is some speculation about. Lyudmila may have been being groomed by her father to take over power in the same communist "dynasty" manner of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in North Korea. However it is believed by some historians that she ran afoul of the Soviet leadership because she promoted Bulgarian nationalism too strongly at the expense of communist solidarity. Bulgaria was always viewed by many as being the most loyal Soviet satellite state.) and the post Brezhnev years. Zhivkov instituted a "phony" glasnost/perestroika after Gorbachev came to power.

Zhivkov was always something of an enigma. He is thought to have personally ordered the death of at least one Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, who was living in England in 1978. The death of Markov was rather James "Bondish." He was stabbed with an umbrella by a man at London's Waterloo station. The tip of the umbrella was made to inject him with the poison "ricin"-a very deadly poison in minute doses-into his body. Georgi Markov died soon afterwards. At home, however, as opposed to unpopular communist leaders such as Romania's Nicolae Ceaucescu, Czechoslovakia's Gustav Husak, and East Germany's Erich Honecker to name a few-many Bulgarian's thought of him fondly and called him by the nickname "Tato" which means "Dad" or "Pop." When Zhivkov passed away in 1998 there was real grief expressed by some Bulgarians at his funeral, although the commnist era was long past. Vangelia Gushterova appeared on Bulgarian State TV with Zhivkov and other high party officials. Some say that she even gathered information psychically for the Bulgarian secret service-the Derzhavna Sigurnost to gain the trust of her visitors.

Here is a thought I had while thinking of Vanga's apparent cooperation with people who were perhaps not the nicest in the world. Perhaps she simply knew she was "trapped" when certain officials came to call. It seems that Vanga did not have a great (or any) belief in changing the course of events (timelines) anyway. So when she was "courted" by Zhivkov or others she told them what she felt she "had" to. After all, whatever knowledge she imparted to Zhivkov didn't save him from falling from power, facing a possible prison sentence (not followed through on due to Zhivkov's age) and allowing him to flee Bulgaria with his wealth while it was still possible. This is of course just theorizing by yours truly. I had another thought as I was typing this although this is in the "weak" category due to Vanga's apparent belief many or all events couldn't be changed. Maybe Vanga foresaw a Bulgarian version of Ceaucescu? With this theory she cooperated with Zhivkov to keep Bulgaria going from the frying pan into the fire.

Here is a list of predictions by Vanga. I have included them all. There are some like the "Kursk" that people swear to and some that are debated but I thought it best to include all of them in case anyone wants to do their own research into this fascinating woman-I am going to continue my research and hope to update this post every now and then. I have been aware a long time about Vanga and finally it seemed the "right" time to do an article-however short on her life. Her predictions include: World War II, the coming to power of the communists in Bulgaria in 1944, the date of Stalin's death, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (in which Bulgarian troops participated), an earthquake in Bulgaria which came to pass in 1985, the Chernobyl disaster, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Boris Yeltsin's electoral victory to become Russia's first freely elected president.

Vanga's after death predictions include the sinking of the Russian submarine "Kursk" that took 118 lives on 12 August 2000, Veselin Topalov's (Bulgarian chess grandmaster) victories in competitions-including one in Sofia in 2009 that cleared his way to become the challenger for the World Chess Championship, the date of her own death and lastly a chilling prediction. Vanga predicted that World War III would begin on November 2010 and last until October 2014. The war will start with conventional weapons, move to nuclear and finally chemical weapons. Let us hope like hell the last one doesn't happen! I was also struck while reading some of her supposed predictions that like Nostradamus, some are very nationalistic and relate to Bulgaria only. Nostradamus was known to be a loyal Frenchman first and many of his predictions relate to France only. There was a famous Nostradamus quatrain about "three brothers" which many commentators automatically took to be the Kennedy brothers-but makes much more sense as a "French" prediction in regards to the monarchy. I am merely conveying this information. I am still studying Vanga, Cayce, Nostradamus and others who claimed to see the future. It is up to each of you to decide what is right and wrong. The only "Vanga" prediction that we have to go by for accuracy is the most horrifying one about WWIII-and I will personally be very happy if that doesn't happen!

The reason I think Auntie Vanga's case is so interesting is that I know her relationship to Todor Zhivkov is "true" to a large extent in that she was sought out by him. Now the reason for this simply could have been Zhivkov trying to have the blessing of a "national treasure" and so on-even to promote tourism to Bulgaria! I am continuuing in my quest to see if she met with Gorbachev and others-and again if this turns out to be true it could be for other reasons. Vanga's house in Petrich in Bulgaria was made into a museum as per her wish after her death. Here are the links HERE and HERE and HERE . The top image is of Vanga during one of her "seeings" and the next is of her house in Petrich. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by! "Kursk" LINK