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.

Women perform a pole dancing routine during the national day celebration of “Urban Pole” dance along a street in Monterrey, Mexico, on June 9, 2013. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

“Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation “The Cellar Tapes”, which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster”. – Wikipedia

Photo: English comic Stephen Fry hosts the comedy revue “Hysteria 3” in support of the Terrence Higgins Trust, 1991. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A man, right, throws a chair at a business window as another man tries to restrain a woman attempting to stop the damage, after march to City Hall for Freddie Gray, Saturday, April 25, 2015 in Baltimore. Gray died from spinal injuries about a week after he was arrested and transported in a police van. (Photo by Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Flying pigeons pass over Nepalese street vendors near the earthquake damaged UNESCO World Heritage Site, Durbar Square in Kathmandu on May 20, 2015. Nearly 8,500 people have now been confirmed dead in the disaster, which destroyed more than half a million homes and left huge numbers of people without shelter with just weeks to go until the monsoon rains. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

In this March 17, 2015 photo, Ashaninka Indian men, identified by locals as illegal loggers, tie tree trunks together to move them along the Putaya River near the hamlet of Saweto, Peru. Illegal logging persists unabated in this remote Amazon community where four indigenous leaders who resisted it were slain in September. The Putaya River is the waterway that transports felled trees, cut both legally and illegally, to the city of Pucallpa. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

A woman and a girl dressed in historical Red Army uniform, wait before watching the Victory Day parade, marking the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, at Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2016. (Photo by Grigory Dukor/Reuters)

In this August 17, 2016, photo, from left to right, Chhering Chodom, 60, Tashi Yangzom, 50, Lobsang Chhering, 27, and Dorje Tandup, 58, drink milk tea on the side of the road. For centuries, the sleepy valley nestled in the Indian Himalayas remained a hidden Buddhist enclave forbidden to outsiders. Enduring the harsh year-round conditions of the high mountain desert, the people of Spiti Valley lived by a simple communal code – share the Earth's bounty, be hospitable to neighbors, and eschew greed and temptation at all turns. That's all starting to change, for better or worse. (Photo by Thomas Cytrynowicz/AP Photo)