Glimpse into the future with Hungary’s ‘last’ Roma fortune teller

Along with his clairvoyance, Sztojka inherited his 150-year-old tarot cards from his great-great-grandmother, who herself was a fortune teller. Photo: AP

Zoltan Sztojka, by his own account Hungary’s last Roma fortune teller, lays 36 weathered tarot cards on a table at his home in the village of Soltvadkert, and peers at them from beneath the brim of his large felt hat.

As he turns the cards with his heavily ringed fingers, he presents his clients – whom he calls “patients” – details of their past, present and future, a skill of divination he says he inherited from an “unbroken family lineage” of fortune tellers dating back to 1601.