  VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea (VVV) is one of six ESO Public Surveys
using the 4 meter Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).
The VVV survey covers the Milky Way bulge and an adjacent section of the disk,
and one of the principal objectives is to search for new star clusters within
previously unreachable obscured parts of the Galaxy.
  The primary motivation behind this work is to discover and analyze obscured
star clusters in the direction of the inner Galactic disk and bulge. Regions of
the inner disk and bulge covered by the VVV survey were visually inspected
using composite JHKs color images to select new cluster candidates on the basis
of apparent overdensities. DR1, DR2, CASU, and PSF photometry of 10x10 arcmin
fields centered on each candidate cluster were used to construct
color-magnitude and color-color diagrams. Follow-up spectroscopy of the
brightest members of several cluster candidates was obtained in order to
clarify their nature.
  We report the discovery of 58 new infrared cluster candidates. Fundamental
parameters such as age, distance, and metallicity were determined for 20 of the
most populous clusters.

Astrophysics of Galaxies;Solar and Stellar Astrophysics