Baba Vanga, or Vangeliya Pandeva Surcheva, was a blind Bulgarian girl with a gift of foresight. During her childhood years and adulthood, Vanga faced many difficulties. However, she came out strong from each one and developed a unique determination to be of service to others.

Everyone who knocked on her door received assistance from her. Vanga never turned away anyone who came looking for her foresight or healing powers.

The eminent clairvoyant is renowned for several of her historical prophecies that came to pass. Continue reading to learn more about the history of the blind mystic.

Birth And Early Life Of Vangeliya Pandeva Surcheva

A daughter was born to Paraskeva Surcheva and Pando Surchev on October 3rd, 1911, in Strumica. 

The girl was born prematurely with many health complications, and she was not given a name. 

This was in line with the folk custom according to which a baby was not named if it was likely to perish.

When the baby was two months old, growing stronger, and had a better chance of survival, a stranger on the street named her Vangeliya.

This was yet another naming custom that involved the grandmother of the child going out into the street on the infant’s naming day and asking the first stranger she saw for a name.

However, the first stranger gave her the name Andromache, but the grandmother did not like it as she considered it “too Greek.” 

She decided to try a second time and turned to the next stranger she encountered. This person named her Vangeliya. The future mystic Vangeliya Pandeva Surcheva was given this name as a result. 

Vangeliya had a challenging childhood. Her mother passed when she was just three. Her father, an Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization activist, was forcefully enlisted in the Bulgarian army during the First World War. 

Due to this, Vanga was left alone, depending on the charity and care of neighbors and relatives for most of her youth. 

When Vangeliya was seven, her father returned from the war. However, Strumica was now ceded to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). 

Vangeliya’s father, considered a pro-Bulgarian activist, was stripped of all of his wealth and property. This left the father-daughter duo in poverty for many years.

Vangeliya was a brilliant little girl, considered smarter than kids her own age. She was known to invent games; even back then, her favorite was “The healer and the afflicted.” 

She loved to play the healer, collecting herbs and making concoctions for her “sick” friends. 

Her widowed father eventually remarried, completing their family, and normalcy returned to their lives. 

However, it did not last for long. Their financial status had not improved, and as it was only worsening, her father decided to move back to their hometown Macedonia where they lived in a new town called Novo Selo. 

In Novo Selo, in 1923, a fateful incident forever changed Vangaliya’s life.