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 Philippine Airlines A300 Airbus plane lies near the service road of a highway south of Manila after it overshot the runway, September 19, 1987 in Manila upon landing from Singapore. Nobody was injured among 135 passengers and crewmen on board. (Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP Photo)

Cambodian children sleep on a pavement at a park in Phnom Penh on July 8, 2016. (Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP Photo)

A boy jumps from a swing during sunset in Valras-Plage, southern France December 29, 2014. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

In this January 23, 2015 photo, Guillermo Luna Martinez, 36, carries freshly painted piñatas representing Disney's Frozen snowman character Olaf downstairs to where his wife Elvia Vicente Albarran will use paper to craft the character's eyes, teeth, and distinctive tuft of hair, at the family's workshop in the Iztapalapa neighborhood of Mexico City. Though Luna and his wife have chosen to work in the family business, they plan to let their children, Guillermo, 10, and Melissa, 9, decide for themselves. “Who knows if the business will last forever”, said Luna, “I'd prefer that they study and get a career, for them to have a better future”. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

Members of the British Thai celebrate the Thai New Year (Songkran) at the Buddhapadipa Temple on April 16, 2018 in London, England. Buddhapadipa Temple, the largest Thai temple in the UK with religious ceremonies Thai classical music and dancing performances as well as stalls selling Thai food, groceries and souvenirs. (Photo by Paul Quezada-Neiman/Alamy Live News)

A Palestinian fisherman casts his net as he stands along the beach in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on June 14, 2019. The Israeli government said late on June 12 that the fishing zone off the coast of Gaza had been closed, in retaliation for the launch of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave. The move came after COGAT said on Tuesday it had reduced the extent of the fishing zone to six nautical miles offshore from 10 nautical miles, having downscaled it from 15 nautical miles a week ago. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

This handout picture taken on December 13, 2016 and released on December 14, 2016 by the Tiergarten Schoenbrunn zoo in Vienna, Austria, shows a baby sloth eating some salad as it hangs on it's mother's belly in their enclosure. The baby was born already on November 18, 2016, but according to the zoo it could be picured for the first time only now as it usually hides in it's mother's soft coat. (Photo by Daniel Zupanc/AFP Photo)