Flames from the Falls Fire burn on a hillside along South Main Divide Road in the Cleveland National Forest as firefighters drive through the area on Monday, August 5, 2013. (Photo by Kurt Miller/AP Photo/The Press-Enterprise)

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)

In this January 3, 2018 photo several female Gelada baboons, also known as bleeding-heart baboons, cuddle with their youngs in order to keep warm at the Wilhelma zoo in Stuttgart, Germany. (Photo by Sebastian Gollnow/DPA via AP Photo)

Gina Di Meo, journalist from ANSA sits during a media preview of Summit at One Vanderbilt in New York, October 1, 2021. The Summit viewing deck is spread across the top four floors on One Vanderbilt in Manhattan, the fourth tallest building in the city. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

A lifeguard warns swimmers as a sea gull flies by on Labor Day at Daytona Beach in Florida on September 4, 2023. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Amanda Lepore attends the “Doll Parts” book launch party at The Standard, Highline on April 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by J. Kempin/Getty Images)

A woman attempts to cover a tear gas canister fired by police at a crowd in Srinagar protesting against the recent killings in Kashmir, August 17, 2016. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

People watch the erupting craters and the lava fountains from the old lava fields around the eruption site on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in Iceland, Wednesday, August 28, 2024. (Photo by Marco di Marco/AP Photo)