Scaffolding holding a remnant of the Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle, is seen on a rooftop of an abandoned building in the town of Pripyat on January 25, 2006 near Chernobyl, Ukraine. The town of Pripyat, deserted since the 1986 catastrophe, once housed 30,000 people, the majority of being workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Days after the catastrophe the inhabitants were relocated to other locations in the Soviet Union. The town of Pripyat has remained uninhabited since. Prypyat and the surrounding area will not be safe for human habitation for several centuries. Scientists estimate that the most dangerous radioactive elements will take up to 900 years to decay sufficiently to render the area safe.

In this file photo taken on Saturday May 1, 1993, an elderly communist woman clutches her head as police on horseback patrol the streets in Moscow. When Alexander Zemlianichenko started working as an AP photographer in Moscow, the Soviet Union was nearing its demise. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Russian policewomen dressed in Soviet Army styled uniforms take part in the Victory Day parade in Volgograd on May 9, 2018. Russia marks the 73 rd anniversary of the Soviet Union' s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

A picture taken on August 7, 2017 shows a Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) at the NABU center (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union), a German organization that aims at reintroducing the panther and fighting against poaching, near the Issyk Kul lake, in the outskirts of Semenovka village, some 330 kilometers southeast of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP Photo)

Military planes fly above a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin during a Naval parade rehearsal in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, July 25, 2019. The celebration of Navy Day in Russia is traditionally marked on the last Sunday of July and will be celebrated on July 28 this year. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A Member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joins other strikers as they take part in a nationwide strike over issues including corruption and job losses outside parliament in Johannesburg, South Africa, October 7, 2020. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as he bids the last farewell to his wife Raisa Gorbacheva during the funeral ceremony in Moscow, Russia, 23 September 1999 (reissued 30 August 2022). According to a Moscow Central Clinical Hospital statement, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91. As a supporter of the de-Stalinization programs of his predecessor Nikita Khrushchev, Gorbachev initiated numerous reforms during his tenure. He signed a nuclear arms treaty with the United States and withdrew the Soviet Union from the Soviet-Afghan war. His policies created freedom of speech and press, and decentralized fiscal policy planning and execution to increase efficiency. Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union, overseeing Russia’s transition from one party rule to fragile democracy. (Photo by Sergey Chirikov/EPA/EFE)