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.

The antennas of the European Southern Observatory's Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, also known as ALMA, are set against the splendor of the Milky Way in this picture by Babak Tafreshi. Construction of the full ALMA array is due to be completed in Chile's Atacama Desert in 2013, but the facility is already making scientific observations with a partial array of antennas. (Photo by ESO/B. Tafreshi/TWAN)

Actress Michelle Rodriguez attends the Shane Black 9th annual Hallowen party held on October 31, 2003 in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Couples take part in a Valentine's Day attempt to break the record for the world's largest simultaneous gay kiss on February 14, 2004 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

Fascist youth, both boys and girls, in the rebel uniforms in Irun after the city had been captured by the rebels. (Photo by Maeers/Fox Photos/Getty Images). 13th November 1936

A street performer jumps in the air inside Central Park as the colors of autumn become more prevalent in New York, October 29, 2015. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

An African migrant stranded in Costa Rica bathes at a makeshift camp at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, July 14, 2016. Thousands of African migrants are currently stranded in Costa Rica after they were denied entry into neighbouring Nicaragua, which they have been using as a crossing point in order to reach the United States. According to the Costa Rican Red Cross, most of these people from Africa, Asia and Haiti. It has been reported that many of them paid smugglers to reach Central America. However, when they arrived at the border gates, they were denied entry and were left with nowhere to go. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)

A woman is having a massage at the Lukacs Bath in Budapest, Hungary June 28, 2016. Hungary's capital owes its popularity as a tourist destination partly to its numerous hot springs and bathing culture which have drawn visitors to the area since Roman times. Bath houses range from large, ornate 19th-century buildings like the Gellert and the Szechenyi to tiny Ottoman Turkish-era hamams, some of them more than 500 years old. (Photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)