Girls in ballet dresses pose near St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia on July 19, 2023. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

A competitor competes during the Hortobagy Hobby Horse Cup in Tiszafured, Hungary, on October 26, 2024. (Photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)

Vietnamese troops march during a parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of independence in Hanoi, Vietnam Tuesday, September 2, 2025. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

Joseph's Amazing Racing Pigs entertain the crowds at the Gillingham And Shaftesbury Spring Countryside Show, on June 09, 2024 in Shaftesbury, England. The countryside show celebrates Dorset's rural life, traditions and culture. Initially set to be the first countryside show of Dorset's rural calendar but now featuring near the end of Spring after a postponement due to a waterlogged showground. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

“Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation “The Cellar Tapes”, which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster”. – Wikipedia

Photo: English comic Stephen Fry hosts the comedy revue “Hysteria 3” in support of the Terrence Higgins Trust, 1991. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Amish girls play softball after class during an end of the school year celebration on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Bergholz, Ohio. The celebration was also part of a farewell picnic for four women and one man from this tight-knit group in rural eastern Ohio who will enter prison on Friday, April 12, joining nine already behind bars on hate crimes convictions for hair- and beard-cutting attacks against fellow Amish. (Photo by Scott R. Galvin/AP Photo)

Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn’t resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union.

Two rescued pangolins sit in a basket during a news conference in Bangkok on June 7, 2012. Thai customs rescued 110 pangolins worth about $35,500 that they say were to be sold outside the country as exotic food. The animals, hidden in a pickup truck, were seized at a customs checkpoint in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, south of Bangkok. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press)