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 Saturday, February 18, 2017 photo, revelers take part in the “Guanabara Pearl” carnival street party on Paqueta Island in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Merry makers ferried across Guanabara Bay to Paqueta Island for the parade. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel/AP Photo)

Thousands of travellers heading to their hometowns to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, wait in a traffic jam to board a ferry at the entrance to Gilimanuk port on Bali, Indonesia July 3, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. (Photo by Nyoman Budhiana/Reuters/Antara Foto)

Students of the "Escola de Papai Noel do Brasil" (Brazil's school of Santa Claus) travel on a ferry through Guanabara bay, during their graduation ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 10, 2015. The school holds 4 days' lessons in Santa-training, teaching Christmas carols, how to interact with children, and also how to wear the heavy red suit in Rio's typical 104-degree (40 degrees celsius) summer weather that is common around the holidays. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

A car stands in water on Ferry Road after two magnitude 6.0 and 5.5 earthquakes struck on June 13, 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The aftershocks have followed four months after the major eathquake which hit the city on February 22, 2011 resulting in the deaths of 181 people. (Photo by Martin Hunter/Getty Images)

UK “Ex On The Beach” star Chloe Goodman had a huge fashion disaster at a London Fashion Week event in Chelsea last night September 21, 2016, when her Christian Louboutin heel got caught in a metal grate. The former Celebrity Big Brother housemate looked embarrassed whilst trying to get her heel back after the disaster as well as cupping her top to avoid a second wardrobe malfunction. (Photo by XposurePhotos.com)

British tourists snap a cheeky selfie with a monkey at the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali, Indonesia, August 4, 2015. George Benton, 22, from Paignton, Devon was visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, Bali whilst traveling with his girlfriend Chloe when the couple snapped a surprise shot with Balinese long-tailed monkey using a “selfie stick”. “We couldn't believe our luck when we looked back at the photos, he looked straight into the camera!” said George, who went on to reward the cheeky chap with a banana for giving the couple such a memorable photo. (Photo by George Benton/Splash News)

Retired Malam Jabba engineer Akbar Ali skis down the piste at the ski resort in Malam Jabba, Pakistan February 7, 2017. Atop the piste of Malam Jabba in Pakistan's once dangerous Swat Valley skiers schuss downhill, a new Chinese-built chairlift ferries tourists to the peak, and a luxury hotel is under construction to replace one torched by the Taliban. (Photo by Caren Firouz/Reuters)