Police officers introduce a litter of golden retriever puppies to be trained as police dogs during a ceremony at the National Police Academy in La Paz, Bolivia, Monday, August 16, 2021, the date of the feast day for Saint Roch, considered the patron saint of dogs, among other things. (Photo by Juan Karita/AP Photo)

Bangladeshi people walk in a polluted air environment in Dhaka, Bangladesh on September 3, 2020. A study says, air pollution shortens life expectancy by seven years in Bangladesh. (Photo by Sultan Mahmud Mukut/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Fire runners in devil costumes gather to enlighten their stick mounted firecrackers during the “Correfocs” at the “Fiesta Major” of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain on April 15, 2023. (Photo by Matthias Oesterle/Alamy Live News)

Protestor Bill Maloney (L) shouts during a live TV broadcast by BBC News Channel chief political correspondent Norman Smith after earlier forcing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to abandon a photocall near Parliament on March 19, 2014 in London, England. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has delivered his Budget statement to Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Charli XCX performs on day three of the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park on July 21, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)

The Aletsch Glacier is pictured at dusk in Fiesch, Switzerland, August 11, 2015. One of Europe's biggest glaciers, the Great Aletsch coils 23 km (14 miles) through the Swiss Alps – and yet this mighty river of ice could almost vanish in the lifetimes of people born today because of climate change. The glacier, 900 metres (2,950 feet) thick at one point, has retreated about 3 km (1.9 miles) since 1870 and that pace is quickening. (Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

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.