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 ballet student poses for a friend to take photos, at the national ballet school in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, December 12, 2019. The Soviet-style system that recruits children into a system of increasingly selective state dance schools has produced hundreds of elite dancers including Lorna Feijoo, Rolando Sarabia, Taras Domitro, Anette Delgado and Carlos Acosta. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/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)

Erica Daly, a District Nurse Team Leader at Mersey Care NHS, stands in front of the “Liver Bird Wings”, an artwork by Paul Curtis on a wall within Liverpool's Baltic Triangle on April 29, 2020. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

A medical worker in protective gear sprays mist on her colleague during a hot day at an outdoor clinic for coronavirus tests at a public health facility in the southwestern city of Gwangju, South Korea, 05 June 2020. (Photo by Yonhap/EPA/EFE)

People take turns stomping the Christopher Columbus statue after it was toppled in front of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. (Photo by Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP Photo)

A contestant for Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018 gets ready backstage during the annual transgender beauty contest “Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018” at the Tiffany's Show Theatre in Pattaya city, Chonburi province, Thailand, 31 August 2018. Thirty Thai transgender contestants took part in the final stage of the annual beauty contest which is aimed to promote the tourism industry in the resort city of Pattaya city. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA/EFE)

Guests attend preview event for “Candytopia”, the outrageously interactive candy wonderland, opening in San Francisco, USA on September 6, 2018. (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Candytopia)