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 pro-democracy demonstrator fights with a Soviet soldier on top of a tank parked in front of the Russian Federation building on August 19, 1991, after a coup toppled Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The same day, thousands in Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities answered Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin's call to raise barricades against tanks and troops. (Dima Tanin/AFP/Getty Images)

“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”. – Yahoo News. Photo: Hungary, MAV 424 Steam Train. (Photo by Rebecca Bathory)

Gianluca Pardelli is something of an expert on markets. For the past two years, he’s travelled across eastern Europe, from Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan, Moldova to Georgia, photographing them. Here: Telavi, Georgia. (Photo by Gianluca Pardelli)

In this July 23, 2013 photo, sand fills an abandoned house in Kolmanskop, Namibia. Kolmanskop, was a diamond mining town south of Namibia, build in 1908 and deserted in 1956. SInce then, the desert slowly reclaims its territory, with sand invading the buildings where 350 German colonists and more than 800 local workers lived during its hay-days of the 1920s. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

Kieron Connolly’s new book of photographs of more than 100 once-busy and often elegant buildings gives an idea of how the world might look if humankind disappeared. Here: Bodie, Mono County, California. Gold was discovered at Bodie in 1859 (just after the initial California gold rush) and it went from mining camp to boomtown. Its decline began in 1880, when word spread of new boomtowns elsewhere. The Standard Consolidated Mine closed in 1913, and four years later the Bodie Railway was abandoned. By 1940 the population was down to 40. Today, Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay as a visitor attraction. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

These images of an abandoned theater act as a time capsule of a location that was once rocked by the stars. The likes of Metallica, R.E.M. and Motorhead all played the Variety Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, but now all that remains are dusty chairs that once supported encapsulated crowds. Renowned abandoned building photographer Matthew Christopher photographed the theater in its dilapidated state. Here: The Variety Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Matthew Christopher/Caters News)

A bulky tree appears to have crashed down on the roof of this clapped-out Citroen. The haunting images were taken by Belgian security guard, Kenneth Provost at various locations across Germany and Belgium. (Photo by Kenneth Provost/Mediadrumworld.com)