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.

Four-year-old Solaris Arias (right) jumps through water spraying from an open fire hydrant in Providence, Rhode Island, on June 20, 2012. Much of the state remained under a heat advisory Tuesday afternoon because of the steamy air mass that has moved into the region resulting in temperatures in the 90s. (Photo by Steven Senne/AP Photo)

A newborn baby pangolin climbs the walls of a cage in Bangkok, Thailand April 20, 2011. The Thai custom office showed 175 pangolins they found hidden in a truck heading into Bangkok. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A woman toes a tube carrying a man during the Ice and snow carnival at Taoranting park in Beijing, China, January 25, 2016. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Racegoers in fashionable hats attend Ladies Day at Cheltenham Festival on March 15, 2017 in Cheltenham, England. (Photo by David Davies/PA Wire)

U.S Army combat camera photographer Spc. Hilda Clayton took this photo July 2, 2013 that was released by the U.S. Army, that shows an Afghan soldier engulfed in flame as a mortar tube explodes during an Afghan National Army live-fire training exercise in Laghman Province, Afghanistan. The accident killed Clayton and four Afghan National Army soldiers. (Photo by Spc. Hilda Clayton/U.S. Army via AP Photo)

A baby tamandua, or anteater, named Poco sticks out its tongue on May 31, 2018. ZSL London Zoo is celebrating the creature’s surprise birth after they found a male to be the companion of its mother Ria last October. (Photo by ZSL London Zoo/PA Wire)

A plane battling the Ferguson Fire passes the setting sun in unincorporated Mariposa County Calif., near Yosemite National Park on Sunday, July 15, 2018. (Photo by Noah Berger/AP Photo)