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)

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)

Annabelle, 13, and her sister Estelle, 10, both artistic gymnasts from Borna, hang from the rings during their training, ahead of the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023, the world's largest sports movement for people with intellectual disabilities, at the Federal base for competitive gymnastic artistics in Chemnitz, Germany on May 6, 2023. (Photo by Annegret Hilse/Reuters)

A man dives into a canal during a hot day in Larkana district of Sind province on July 20, 2023. (Photo by Ahmed Raza Soomro/AFP Photo)

The Nebraska Cornhuskers huddle before Wednesday’s match against the Omaha Mavericks at Memorial Stadium on August 30, 2023 in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Photo by Dylan Widger/USA Today Sports)

Revellers make the most of Friday night in Soho, central London after the hottest day of the year recorded in the capital this year, June 17, 2022. (Photo by Marcin Nowak/Alamy Live News)

A woman carries her cat as Palestinians who had taken refuge in temporary shelters return to their homes in eastern Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during the first hours of a four-day truce in the battles between Israel and Hamas militants, on November 24, 2023. A four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war began on November 24, with hostages set to be released in exchange for prisoners in the first major reprieve in seven weeks of war that have claimed thousands of lives. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP Photo)