From Prague to Podgorica, official photos from Europe's Eastern bloc during the years of communism tend to look the same, as seen below.

Crowds in Sofia listen to a speech by Leonid Brezhnev during the Soviet leader's 1967 visit to Bulgaria.

Now, thanks to two visual historians, an online resource called the Bulgarian Visual Archive (BVA) offers an intimate glimpse into what life was like for ordinary people behind Bulgaria's iron curtain.

Spring in the park known as the Garden of the Memorial to the Soviet Army in 1961. The Soviet monument in the background was removed in December 2023 after decades of public debate.

Since its launch in 2019, the BVA has amassed a collection of more than 16,000 images from the previous century, with many donated from personal collections.

You can read more at: https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgaria-visual-archive-socialist-era-photos/33148284.html.