A resident brings his dog that uses a mask in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 12, 2020. (Photo by Jefta Images/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

A woman wearing a protective mask is seen behind a girl dressed in a Plague Doctor Mask in Western-Ukrainian city of Lviv, Ukraine, 22 March 2020. Ukrainian Designer Anastasia Markovska sewed protective masks looking like Plague Doctor Masks, the traditional costume of Venice Carnival, for herself and her friends due to the ongoing pandemic of the COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. In Ukraine had been 47 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19, including three deaths and one recovery as Ukraine's Health Ministry announced. (Photo by Pavlo Palamarchuk/EPA/EFE)

A masked reveller poses during the Venice Carnival in Venice, Italy February 17, 2017. (Photo by Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)

A face mask discarded in a forest in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, October 18, 2020. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Residents wearing masks rest in the shade near a graffiti of a dragon, Friday, May 27, 2022, in Beijing. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Jerome Holcomb of Birmingham, Ala., posses for a photo atop a longhorn steer at the Fort Worth Stockyards Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas. The mask mandate to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been cancelled in Texas. Holcomb said he was tired of wearing a face mask so he came to visit Fort Worth after the Alabama governor extended the mask mandate in his home state. (Photo by L.M. Otero/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.

A woman wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus stretches her body next to a masked woman sitting on a bench outside a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, October 21, 2021. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)