A brig with scarlet sails travels on the Finnish Gulf coast during a rehearsal for the the Scarlet Sails festivities marking school graduation in St. Petersburg, Russia, early Saturday, June 27, 2020. This year the festival will not be held in the city center, but on the Finnish Gulf. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be no spectators but the event will be broadcast on television. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Overall winner: The Art of Flight by Alwin Hardenbol (University of Eastern Finland). A panning shot of a Dalmatian pelican in flight. The picture was taken on Lake Kerkini in Greece. (Photo by Alwin Hardenbol/2020 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

People shout slogans next to Turkish police officers during the LGBTQ Pride March in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, June 26, 2022. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

An employee builds up the figure of the Queen of Hearts from the movie Alice in Wonderland (2010) in the immersive exhibition “Tim Burton's Labyrinth” in Berlin on July 8, 2024. From July 19, 2024, the international exhibition ”Tim Burton's Labyrinth” can be experienced at the Radsetzerei in Berlin. (Photo by Ronny Hartmann/AFP Photo)

A dog belonging to the Armed Police Force jumps through a ring of fire while performing a trick during Kukur Tihar as part of Tihar, a term used in Nepal for Diwali, in Kathmandu, Nepal, on October 20, 2025. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A protester reacts outside New Zealand's parliament during a demonstration against a proposed law that would redefine the country's founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown, in Wellington Tuesday, November 19, 2024. (Photo by Mark Tantrum/AP Photo)

U.S. Rep Steve Southerland grins after winning an auctioned possum during the Wausau Possum Festival on Saturday, August 2, 2014, in Wausau, Fla. What is usually a must-attend event for statewide candidates was notably lacking of them this year, perhaps because candidates who now raise tens of millions of dollars focus more on television ads than making personal contact. But not attending is a missed opportunity, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor who drove more than 350 miles for the festival. (Photo by Heather Leiphart/AP Photo/The News Herald)

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)