By STEPHEN KINZER
Published: Wednesday, April 5, 1995
This remote hamlet has become a shrine for the sick and troubled from throughout the Balkans and beyond. Every day they come by the hundreds, hoping for a word from an extraordinary woman who they believe is blessed with great mystic power.
The visionary, known only as Vanga, is widely believed to be able to see and feel things that are beyond the senses of ordinary people. There are countless stories of her ability to explain the past, predict the future and prescribe cures for physical and spiritual pain.
Vanga, who is in her 80's and has not used a family name for decades, was blinded in a windstorm that swept through southwestern Bulgaria when she was a young girl. Soon afterward, Bulgarians say, she began to show remarkable psychic gifts. Her fame grew steadily, and today there is hardly a Bulgarian who does not know of her.
In her youth, Vanga was often consulted by members of Bulgaria's royal family, which was deposed in the 1940's. In the Communist era, although few reports about her were allowed to appear in the press, senior members of the ruling elite traveled regularly to seek her counsel.
Journalists in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, say Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Soviet leader until his death in 1982, consulted Vanga at least once. More recently, they say, leaders of several former Soviet republics have taken time out from state visits to make the three-hour trip here from Sofia.
At first sight, this dusty outpost near the Greek border seems unremarkable. There are only about a dozen modest houses, and in the one where Vanga lives chickens feed in a petunia garden as laundry flaps from clotheslines.
But there is one striking edifice here: an extremely unorthodox Orthodox church. It was designed by one of Bulgaria's most daring architects, Bogdan Tomalevski, and looks nothing like an Orthodox church is supposed to look. There are no domes, and inside there is no gold, no altar, no alcove for praying. The only decorations on the pale walls are boldly stylized portraits of saints by Svetlin Roussev, a Bulgarian painter known for his experimental art.
The church was paid for with contributions that pilgrims left here in tribute to Vanga, and built according to her specifications. Although it has been open only since October, the murals inside have already had to be retouched because they have been kissed so many thousands of times.
Orthodox bishops at first refused to consecrate the church because it does not conform to normal standards, but they later relented, apparently unwilling to make an enemy of Vanga. Politicians, writers, actors and diplomats, including Bulgaria's Foreign Minister and the Russian Ambassador, were among the thousands who turned up for the consecration service.
One recent day, several busloads of pilgrims arrived here. A few were admitted to the small adobe house where Vanga lives, but most had to be content with a glimpse of her as she briefly stepped outside. She walked haltingly, long gray hair flowing over her shoulders. The crowd fell silent, but she made no gesture to acknowledge its presence.
Many of those who came seemed burdened with sadness. Several told stories of disappeared loved ones or families afflicted with illness.
"I came here once before, many years ago, and everything she predicted for me came to pass," one woman said. "She told me that my mother's sickness could not be cured, and she was right. She said that my nephew had been murdered, and we found the body exactly where she told us to look. I absolutely believe everything she says. I adore her. She is a saint."
Each time Vanga predicts an event correctly, as she did before an earthquake that shook northern Bulgaria in 1985, her legend grows. Inaccurate predictions, like her vision that the World Cup soccer final last year would be played between "two teams beginning with B," are quickly forgotten. One finalist was Brazil, but Bulgaria was eliminated by Italy in the semifinals.
Vanga, who rarely gives interviews, has said the area around Rupite attracts unexplained cosmic forces. Boiling water bubbles from the earth outside her house, and many believe it has curative power.
Although Vanga's visitors come from as far away as Japan and South America, some of her neighbors are skeptical.
"Local people don't believe in her," said a peasant woman walking through the streets of Petric, a nearby town. "She just looks at you, asks you what's wrong and then repeats phrases she has memorized. A lot of what she does is for money. And the way she talks is vulgar. She uses words that no woman should use, especially not a godly person."
Such doubting, however, evidently has no effect on Vanga's legion of admirers.
"Vanga is religious in the most noble and elevated sense of the word," a Bulgarian journalist wrote recently in the magazine Literary Forum. "Her unique capacity to resurrect past events and to look into the future is one of the greatest secrets of our time."
Photo: A Bulgarian woman known only as Vanga is revered by pilgrims for what they believe is her mystic power. She appeared last October at the opening of a church built in her honor in the hamlet of Rupite. (Reuters) Map of Bulgaria showe the location of Rupite.
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