A municipal worker sits on a bench, next to a statue, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, during the 2018 soccer World Cup, Thursday, June 28, 2018. Nizhny Novgorod was a “closed city” during the Soviet era. It was known as Gorky until 1990 and it was here that dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov was held under house arrest. Now the city hosts six World Cup matches and is teeming with tourists. That was unthinkable in the Soviet era and even rare now in a city that is seldom visited by outsiders. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Workers pull apart a house in Khandyga, Russia, on February 2, 2018. The shifting ground caused by the uneven thawing of permafrost each summer causes buildings like this Soviet-era apartment house to sag and collapse. (Photo by Amos Chapple/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

People have fun on an alley through Christmas lights in downtown Chisinau, Moldova, 23 December 2021. Traditionally, people from former countries of the Soviet Union, still celebrate Christmas on two occasions, on 25 December and 07 January. (Photo by Dumitru Doru/EPA/EFE)

In this photo taken Thursday, May 7, 2015 photo, remains of Soviet soldiers killed during World War II lay in a coffin prior to a reburial ceremony at the Sinyavino Heights memorial near the village of Sinyavino, 50 km (31 miles) east of St. Petersburg, Russia. Hundreds of people came to a World War II battleground outside St. Petersburg this week to bury the remains of 964 Soviet soldiers recovered by volunteer search teams. Fifty crimson coffins containing skulls and bones were solemnly buried at the Sinyavino Heights memorial as Russian war songs played and an honor guard fired a salute. (Photo by Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his daughter Irina Virganskaya attend the Free Your Mind Award Presentation at the Cinema For Peace charity dinner at the China Club on November 8, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images). BERLIN – NOVEMBER 08 2009

Two dogs sent into outer space by the Soviet Union after their safe return to earth. They spent 22 days in orbit. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 22nd March 1966

A group of women wearing dresses representing flags of the Allied powers (left to right: the USA, France, Britain and the Soviet Union) outside the Eglise de la Madeleine on VE Day in Paris, 8th May 1945. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A worker looks at an old soviet tank T-34 (L) as he fixes military vehicle (R) at a Phaeton museum in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, August 11, 2015. The museum stopped the restoration works of their collection of about 120 retro autos and motorcycles to help the Ukrainian army to restore military vehicles and equipment which will be used in the conflict in Ukraine eastern regions. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)