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 1967, Zhang Yaxin was 34 and working as a photojournalist at China’s state-controlled Xinhua News Agency when he was assigned to a top-secret government project. He was to be the official photographer of a new arts program led by Chairman Mao and his wife – the Model Operas. Though he was not to know it then, Zhang would spend the next seven years documenting the evolution of one of the most dramatic and elaborate attempts to redefine artistic sensibilities in modern art history”. – Chengcheng Jiang via TIME. Photo: Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, 1971. (Photo by Zhang Yaxin/Courtesy See+ Gallery, Beijing)

Nigerian make-up artist, Mary Oni, creates artwork on her chest using make-up, in her home in Lagos, Nigeria on January 26, 2022. (Photo by Seun Sanni/Reuters)

A woman, wearing a traditional Sevillana dress, performs as she asks for alms in downtown Malaga, Spain, April 28, 2016. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

Rescuers attempt attempt to push stranded whales back into the ocean at Ujong Kareng beach in Aceh province, Indonesia, Monday, November 13, 2017. An official said a small pod of whales was stranded at the beach and attracted hundreds of onlookers who posed for pictures with them. (Photo by AP Photo/Zulkarnaini)

Riot police clash with demonstrators protesting against proposed pension reforms outside the Congress in Buenos Aires on December 18, 2017. Protesters angry at proposed pension and welfare reforms attacked police close to Argentina's congress building in Buenos Aires on Monday, the second protest in a week to turn violent. Activists lobbed stones, bottles and firecrackers at police as huge crowds demonstrated against pension reforms proposed by the center-right government of President Mauricio Macri. (Photo by Eitan Abramovich/AFP Photo)

A boy plays with pelicans in Yoff, commune of Dakar, Senegal March 14, 2018. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

An actor dressed as Tyrion Lannister, poses for photographers with fake severed head before the screening of final episode of “Game of Thrones” on 20-meter-high screen at RZD Arena in Moscow, Russia on May 20, 2019. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)