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)

A young YPJ recruit (in pink) arrives to the training base for her first day in training near Derek City, Syria. The YPJ schedule is demanding and requires discipline – new soldiers in training get about 6 hours of sleep a night and wake up at 4 AM to begin exercising; afterwards, their day consists of a full schedule of drills and classroom lessons. Before joining the YPJ many of the girls had never participated in physical activity or sports before. (Photo by Erin Trieb/NBC News)

An athlete pulls a 15-tonne truck during a Truck-Pull event marking the upcoming Independence Day in the Belarus capital Minsk, on July 3, 2014. The former Soviet nation celebrates its Independence Day on July 3 in memory of the end of Belarus occupation by Nazi Germany troops during the Red Army main summer offensive in 1944. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)

Female Siberian tiger Dasha yawns in the new enclosure at the zoo in Duisburg, Germany, 30 March 2016. The new facility is three times larger than the old one and will be opened to the public on the same day. (Photo by Roland Weihrauch/EPA)

Cemetery workers lift a corpse from a coffin to a metal plate as they prepare the body for cremation at a cemetery in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 27, 2019. Some overcome the financial burden of a relative's death by renting caskets, a cheaper option than buying one. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Syrian dancer and choreographer Yara al-Hasbani performs a dance on the empty Trocadero square in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris on April 22, 2020, on the 37th day of a strict lockdown in France to stop the spread of COVID-19 (novel coronavirus). (Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP Photo)

A Cambodian man sells shoes on a motorized cart travelling along a street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 30 April 2020. Cambodian authorities are enforcing strict traffic rules in an effort to cut down traffic accidents on the road as a new land traffic law will go into effect in the beggining of of May 2020. (Photo by Mak Remissa/EPA/EFE)

A food market shows off rows upon rows of dead animals, some of which have been beaten to death. Dogs and chickens can be seen lined up with their mouths hanging wide open. Shoppers even pick up some of the dogs and bats as they look for the best on the market. Retired biologist and amateur photographer Alf Jacob Nilsen took the shocking pictures of the market during a visit to Tomohon Village in Northern Sulawei, Indonesia. Pictured: Flying foxes (bats) for sale at the market. (Photo by Alf Jacob Nilsen/Solent News)