You know, take all the pics in the dead of winter on a cloudy day, maybe after some rainfall. Use cool color filters. Show how much propaganda i.e. advertising dominates the scene. Just show it in all its depressing glory.
I'm not a good enough photographer to do this, so someone else take this idea and run with it.
Unless you’re well over 40 years old, you’re not going to have many memories of the actual buildings before they became in disrepair during capitalist austerity enforced by the collapse and looting of the former USSR.