93 Old Photos That Show People And Places That Will Never Return (New Pics)

"Sub is private. I'm just the one guy doing all the content," is a disclaimer in the bio of the r/DragonUtopia subreddit, a place from which these wonderful historical photographs come. Back in 2022, Bored Panda had the pleasure of talking to the person behind the subreddit, the Polish Redditor behind the alias u/myrmekochoria.

As of 2026, the subreddit has a modest following of 11k weekly visitors, but that doesn't make the content any less fascinating or engaging. Back then, u/myrmekochoria told us that the title "Dragon Utopia" is a reference to the game Heroes of Might and Magic III. 

"There is a building called Dragon Utopia, and after fighting with a powerful dragon you are rewarded with powerful artifacts," the Redditor told us. "In concept, this subreddit was destined to be dedicated to old artifacts and objects from online museums. But there is already a great subreddit for that, so I switched directions and merged two types of content into one. The name remained."

The two types of content the Redditor mentioned refer to his previous endeavors online. They posted two types of content: old art-themed posts, for which the page title was "Elder Scrolls" (Starszezwoje in Polish), and objects from museums, letters from Mesopotamia, armor, weapons, and similar artifacts. The latter was titled "Dragon Utopia" (Smoczautopia in Polish).

u/DragonUtopia is not just a casual hobby for u/myrmekochoria: you can find many new posts in the subreddit every day. Back in 2022, the Redditor aimed to post about 10 new photographs a day. "The posts depend on what I’m reading currently or am in the mood of," the Redditor explained their process.

"I usually post around 10 posts a day, and there is sometimes (not always) an overarching theme hidden behind them," u/myrmekochoria went on. The themes they find most fascinating include: cruelty of humans, beauty of art, indifference of war and of the biological world, suffering of humans, and maybe the possibility of empathy and the feeling of their despair as yours through photographs, child labor, and the progress of science changing life for the better.

u/myrmekochoria is a big believer in using reputable online sources. "There are so many great resources now on the Internet," they told us back in 2022. "There are plenty of national archives (like the Library of Congress, Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (National Digital Archives in Poland), and a bunch of others — nearly every country now has digitized [their] archives."

The Redditor doesn't shy away from using other blogs and social media accounts as resources. "For the most part, I try to give the content some kind of personal touch, if that is possible," they admit.

Many history enthusiasts and even historians have flocked to u/DragonUtopia. u/myrmekochoria admitted that the enthusiastic community is one of the biggest perks of curating the subreddit. "They always have something interesting to say and they provide interesting links to articles or academic papers," the Redditor told us in the previous interview. 

"If I post about lesser-known events from modern times, people sometimes write that they were there or witnessed it. Sometimes, citizens of a city or smaller village write to me about how things change or which building still stands (or not).”

In the end, the Redditor sometimes even learns more from the community than during their research process. "Often they will give me interesting links to blogs or archives that I did not even know existed, and I end up using them in future posts," u/myrmekochoria told Bored Panda. "The readers often say that they learn things that were before completely unknown to them about history from the subreddit, and that is very flattering."