In this September 10, 1977, file photo, from left, Hua Guofeng, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman and Mao Zedong's immediate successor; Ye Jianying, CCP vice chairman and future ceremonial head of state; Deng Xiaoping, no formal titles at the time but soon to emerge as paramount leader during the reform era; Li Xiannian, CCP vice chairman and future president; Wang Dongxing, head of the leadership bodyguard unit who helped topple the Gang of Four, view the body of later Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Beijing. (Photo via AP Photo)

Felix Guirola, 52, rides a homemade bike with an advertising banner in Havana, Cuba, July 20, 2016. The handyman, who loves heights, provides advertising space for companies on homemade bikes that tower up to 7.5 meters (24.61 ft). He rides them around Havana in an ingenious way of getting around strict marketing regulations in the Communist-ruled island. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

MiG-15 jet fighters are pictured in Kucova Air Base in Kucova, Albania on October 3, 2018. Albania retired its 224 Soviet- and Chinese-made MiGs in 2005, and since 2009 NATO neighbors Italy and Greece monitor its airspace. That led to economic decline in and around Kucova, which was called “Stalin City” during the era of Communist rule. (Photo by Florion Goga/Reuters)

Bulgarian Muslims Azim Liumankov and his bride Fikrie Bindzheva pose in front of their house during their wedding ceremony in the village of Ribnovo, in the Rhodope Mountains, February 15, 2015. The remote mountain village of Ribnovo in southwest Bulgaria has kept its traditional winter marriage ceremony alive despite decades of Communist persecution, followed by poverty that forced many men to seek work abroad. (Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)

Pedestrians and vehicles make their way past the Potala Palace early on a rainy morning in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in China, Saturday, September 19, 2015. Chinese officials have taken foreign journalists on a visit to the region, normally off-limits to them, weeks after Communist Party officials commemorated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region. (Photo by Aritz Parra/AP Photo)

Performing arts titled “Solitude of Silences” by Gimhongsok is staged at Art Basel in Hong Kong, China on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/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.

A visitor poses with a 3D art work during a Japanese Trick Art exhibition at a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, December 4, 2012. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)