M3

A com­bi­na­tion pic­ture shows (top) the fig­ures of Soviet sol­diers at the base of the Soviet Army mon­u­ment, painted by an unknown artist, in Sofia on June 17 and a mem­ber of the Bul­gar­ian Social­ist Party’s youth organ­i­sa­tion clean­ing the same fig­ures of the mon­u­ment Feb­ru­ary 18, 2010. The fig­ures have been painted to resem­ble U.S. comic book heroes and char­ac­ters from pop­u­lar cul­ture like Santa Claus and Ronald McDon­ald, the mas­cot of fast-​​food chain giant McDonald’s. The inscrip­tion below them reads: «Mov­ing with the times». Stoyan Nenov /​ Reuters