Pasha was born in Sofia in the residential district of Knyajevo to mother Lyubka and father Hristo. When she was five, her parents divorced. Her father got remarried to a woman named Tsvetana and received custody of Pasha, while her brother Ventsi remained with his mother. Pasha's second brother Krasimir is the child of her father's second marriage. Both Pasha and Krasimir were raised to call both mothers their own. They called them "mother Tsetska" and "mother Lyubka". Lyubka worked at the kindergarten they attended so both children were cared after by her there and by Tsetska at home. The children were also raised by their grandmother Parashkeva on their father's side. They called her "old mother". Pasha had a very close relationship with "old mother" (whom she was named after), who brought her up and enrolled her in violin lessons. While most people at the time called her Pepi (the usual diminutive for the names Petranka, Petya, Penka and the like), her grandmother, who was a great admirer of Pasha Angelina (a famous Soviet Stakhanovite of the Joseph Stalin era), gave her the nickname Pasha. Pasha was traumatized by her grandmother's death. They were very close and shared a bed. One morning she simply woke up in her grandmother's cold, stiff embrace.