Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

Two sculputures at the waterfront in Marseille – Ever feel like youve forgotten something? No its not a mind trick – these are the amazing photos of sculptures done by a French artist. The sculptures are the work of Bruno Catalano and might look like theyre missing vital organs but the invisible bodies represent a world citizen according to their creator. (Photo by Caters News Agency)

Nino, a ten-year-old toreador apprentice of the French Tauromachy Centre, nicknamed El Nino, touches a practice bull at the bullring of Garons, near Nimes, September 25, 2013. Since 1983, the French Tauromachy Centre in Nimes has trained some 1,000 youths in the art of bullfighting. Twenty of them have gone on to become professional matadors, facing fighting bulls in the arena. Twice a week, students take courses with a matador to learn the movements and gestures of the bullfighter in the ring, but without an animal present. Students train with calves in the surrounding fields during spring, and regularly participate in beginner's bullfights (becerradas) without killing calves. Solal has been taking courses for three years and Nino, for just a year now. Both are normally enrolled in French public schools, but have one thought in mind – bullfighting. They share a passion linked to the city of Nimes, famous for its ferias and bullring. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

Sun Model students pose for a photo during a training session at the school on March 31, 2014 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Having started in August 2010 with only three models, the Sun Model Agency and School is starting to make an impact in the fashion industry in Cambodia. (Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images)

A worker walks through a salt pan on the eve of May Day or Labour Day on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Chennai April 30, 2014. India is the third largest salt producing country in the world after China and U.S. with global annual production about 230 million tonnes, according to government data. (Photo by Reuters/Babu)

Tourists in traditional costumes visit a rose garden during a rose cultural festival on April 27, 2021 in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

This photograph taken during a government organised media tour shows people in traditional costume standing in Potala Palace Square as the Potala Palace – classified as a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1994 – is seen in the background in the regional capital Lhasa, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on June 1, 2021. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

Women dance at the Taiga nightclub in Batroun village, north of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, July 2, 2021. With their dollars trapped in the bank, a lack of functioning credit cards and travel restrictions imposed because of the pandemic, many Lebanese who traditionally vacationed over the summer at regional hotspots are also now turning toward domestic tourism. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP Photo)