  We study two-component solitons and their symmetry-breaking bifurcations
(SBBs) in linearly coupled photonic systems with a spatially inhomogeneous
strength of the coupling. One system models an inverted virtual photonic
crystal, built by periodically doping the host medium with atoms implementing
the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In this system, two
soliton-forming probe beams with different carrier frequencies are mutually
coupled by the EIT-induced effective linear interconversion. The system is
described by coupled nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (NLS) equations for the probes,
with the linear-coupling constant periodically modulated in space according to
the density distribution of the active atoms. The type of the SBB changes from
sub- to supercritical with the increase of the total power of the probe beams,
which does not occur in systems with constant linear-coupling constants.
Qualitatively similar results for the SBB of two-component solitons are
obtained, in an exact analytical form, in the model of a fused dual-core
waveguide, with the linear coupling concentrated at a point.
