Claims that the Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga predicted global events such as the 9/11 attacks, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have been dismissed by experts, who say most of the prophecies attributed to her were never made. The so-called “Nostradamus of the Balkans” has become a tool for clickbait and pro-Russian narratives, according to researchers and the foundation that bears her name.
Ivan Dramov of the Baba Vanga Foundation told the Guardian that “absolute lies have been told about this holy woman”, noting that she focused on personal health issues, not world cataclysms. Dramov, whose organisation was chaired by Vanga before her death, said many viral predictions of nuclear war or alien contact are fabrications amplified on TikTok, YouTube and tabloids.
Vanga, born Vangeliya Gushterova in 1911 in what was then the Ottoman Empire, lost her sight after a tornado as a teenager. She gained local fame during the Second World War by helping people find out about missing loved ones. By the 1960s, she attracted visitors from across Europe, but her pronouncements were limited to personal advice, said Dramov.
Russian culture has particularly embraced Vanga, inspiring the verb vangovat (to predict). However, many of her supposed predictions about Russia, including the fall of the Soviet Union, can be traced to writer Valentin Sidorov, who claimed to have met her in the 1970s but left no recordings. “This allowed Sidorov a free interpretation, or possibly even construction of what Vanga has or has not said,” said researcher Viktoria Vitanova-Kerber.
A 2024 report by BIRN Albania found that at least a dozen Albanian publications used Vanga’s predictions to reinforce anti-Nato and anti-EU narratives, often citing Russian media. Experts warn that the myth of Baba Vanga continues to fuel disinformation, with no credible evidence for the grand prophecies circulating online.
