Territorially, Bulgaria is close to Greece and larger than Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Czechia. It holds 16th position among 51 countries in Europe. High-income countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland also have lower population than NYC.
I thought I made it clearly but I'm happy to repeat. The post-Soviet-collapse socio-political developments in Bulgaria are (for a lot of obvious reasons) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike those of the actual Soviet collapse.
One of these obvious reasons is that Bulgaria is a small country. Especially compared to the Soviet Union. Which was a big country. In fact, the biggest one.
What is your point?