Elephant polo players in action during the King's Cup Elephant Polo event 2016 final between teams King Power (blue) and The Elephant Story, in Bangkok, Thailand, March 13, 2016. Team King Power won the annual charity event, which is now in its 14th edition. This year's edition involved 18 elephants brought from tourist trekking camps in Pattaya as well as some unemployed in Surin, and a total of 10 teams encompassing over 40 players, in this event directed at raising funds to improve the lives of elephants and elephant conservation. (Photo by Diego Azubel/EPA)

Spanish legionnaires sing an anthem as they carry a statue of the Christ of Mena outside a church during a ceremony before they take part in the “Mena” brotherhood procession in Malaga, southern Spain, March 24, 2016. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A participant blows on yellow powder held in her hand during a Holi Party before the Gay Pride Parade in Barcelona on July 9, 2016. (Photo by Lluis Gene/AFP Photo)

Two race pigs jump over an obstacle during a rural festivity in reference to Maria Ascension in San Bernardino, Switzerland on Monday, August 15 2016. (Photo by Samuel Golay/Keystone/TI-Press via AP Photo)

Civilians, who fled the violence in Manbij city, arrive to the southeastern rural area of Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria June 19, 2016. (Photo by Rodi Said/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.

In this April 7, 2015 photo, a tourist peers through the door of a jail cell inside the now empty Garcia Moreno prison during a guided tour for the public in Quito, Ecuador. According to tour guides, this cell was nicknamed “Los Polillas”, or “The Moths”. Here, in a room designed to hold two prisoners, about 15 inmates with drug addictions were locked in overnight by the prison gangs that controlled daily life. The locked-in prisoners were also known to prostitute themselves to get access to drugs. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

A dirty thunderstorm occurs over Mount Sakurajima as the volcano erupts violently at 12:03 am on July 26, 2016 in Tarumizu, Kagoshima, Japan. The eruption occurred at the mountain's Showa crater. This is the first time that the active volcano in southern Kyushu has spewed out a smokestack that high since an eruption on August 18, 2013, according to the Kagoshima Meteorological Office. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)