Moscow--Dzhuna, a famed mystic healer and astrologer who is said to have treated Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Russian celebrities, died on Monday at 65, her close friend told AFP.
"Dzhuna died on Monday morning," said Andrei Malakhov, the host of a prime-time chat show on Channel One state television, by telephone.
Dzhuna's death led the news broadcasts on state channels, reflecting her enormous fame in the chaotic years after the breakup of the USSR when psychics and astrologers enjoyed a wave of new-found popularity.
"Some called her a charlatan, some called her a saviour," said the state RIA Novosti news agency.
Dzhuna, whose real name was Yevgenia Davitashvili, "was the secret healer of the Kremlin, she was a female version of Rasputin in the 1980s," Igor Matviyenko, a top pop producer, told AFP, adding that he was married to her "for a month" in the late 1980s.
AFP
