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)

Students wearing masks rest amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Seoul, South Korea, August 25, 2020. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Women walk in heavy rain as Typhoon Haishen hits Kagoshima, Kagoshima prefecture on September 6, 2020. Typhoon Haishen began to lash southern Japan on September 6, with officials warning it could bring record rainfall and winds strong enough to snap power line poles and flip cars. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

People out in Manchester town centre, United Kingdom on September 20, 2020. The latest Public Health England data shows that 672 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the city in the seven days to September 17. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Aymara indigenous people celebrate the “Roscasiri”, the change of command of local authorities, in Pomata District, one of seven districts of the Chucuito Province in the Puno Region, southern Peru, on January 1, 2022. This ancient Aymara event, in which people adorn themselves with breads and fruits that represent abundance for the new year, celebrates the change of command of local authorities. (Photo by Carlos Mamani/AFP Photo)

A visitor kneels on the 180-meter-high and 300 meter-long glass-bottomed suspension bridge at the Shiniuzhai National Geopark in Pingjiang county, in central China's Hunan province, 24 September 2015. (Photo by Jiao Zi/Imaginechina via AFP Photo)

A streaker races across the field and is caught by security during the Super Rugby match between New Zealand's Highlanders and South Africa's Sharks at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin on February 7, 2020. (Photo by Marty Melville/AFP Photo)

A woman wears a scuba mask and a surgical mask as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus, while buying food in a popular market in Lima, Peru, Monday, March 23, 2020. The vast majority of people recover from the COVID-19 disease. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)