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)

An animal rights activist washes herself with red dye to mimic blood during a protest against the testing of shampoo on animals in Barcelona. April 24, 2012. (Photo by Raul Albaledo/AFP Photo)

Grace Sun, from Shenzhen China, poses for a picture outside Capital One Arena, ahead of a rally for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump the day before he is scheduled to be inaugurated for a second term, in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2025. “I think it's a very good thing between China and America”, said Sun. “I think cooperation will be better”. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Colombia's Egan Bernal pedals as he warms up ahead of the 10th stage of the Giro d'Italia cycling race, an individual time trial from Lucca to Pisa, Italy, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Photo by Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via AP Photo)

Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka poses with the 2023 Australian Open winner's trophy in Royal Botanic Garden in Melbourne on January 29, 2023, following her victory over Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina in the women's singles final of the tennis tournament. (Photo by Carl Recine/Reuters)

This photo taken and received courtesy of an anonymous source on April 8, 2021 show a woman looking at shoes displayed with flowers in Yangon's Myaynigone township, as part of the “Marching Shoes Strike” called on social media to protest against the demonstration against the military coup in Myanmar. (Photo by Handout via AFP Photo)

Children riding on donkeys queue to fill their jerrycans with water from a cistern at a make-shift camp for the internally displaced in Yemen's northern Hajjah province on July 12, 2021, amidst an extreme heat wave and severe water shortage. (Photo by Essa Ahmed/AFP Photo)

A man walks with a Cyberdog, produced by Chinese tech company Xiaomi, on February 19, 2022 in Beijing, China.The quadruped robots, often owned by tech and robotic enthusiasts, do not have a specific purpose so far, but the open source nature of the robots could make them suitable for several applications in the future. (Photo by Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images)