A worker cleans a statue of the founder of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin at Moscow Square in front of the House of Soviets in Saint-Petersburg on April 21, 2022. (Photo by Olga Maltseva/AFP Photo)
Soviet Army soldiers sit on their tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio station building in central Prague during the first day of Soviet-led invasion to then Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. (Photo by Libor Hajsky/Reuters)
People make pictures in a Soviet-era vintage subway car, with a Soviet railways emblem on the side of it, parked in the Partizanskaya subway station in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 15, 2015. Vintage Soviet-era metro cars were exhibited at the Partizanskaya subway station as part of festivities marking the 80th anniversary of the Moscow subway on Friday. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)
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)