Tourists from Holland peak through a crack in a still-existing portion of the Berlin Wall at the main memorial to the Wall in Bernauer Strasse on the 22nd anniversary of the fall of the Wall on November 9, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The Berlin Wall, erected by the communist authorities of then East Germany in 1961, divided the city and prevented East Germans from travelling west until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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)

In this Wednesday, August 21, 1991 file photo, appreciative muscovites hand bread, sausages and flowers to a Soviet tank's driver who helped stop the failed hardline coup in Moscow, Russia. When a group of top Communist officials ousted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 30 years ago and flooded Moscow with tanks, the world held its breath, fearing a rollback on liberal reforms and a return to the Cold War confrontation. But the August 1991 coup collapsed in just three days, precipitating the breakup of the Soviet Union that plotters said they were trying to prevent. (Photo by Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo/File)

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.

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)

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)