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)

Wang Zhengqing, a 74 year old pneumoconiosis patient, smokes his pipe at Yangjia Hospital in Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province, China October 19, 2015. Former miner Wang was diagnosed with the disease, which is caused by dust inhalation, when he was 24 and has lived at Yangjia Hospital for ten years. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A Minion character dressed in a Christmas theme is pictured in Times Square during unseasonably warm weather on Christmas Eve in the Manhattan borough of New York, December 24, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

In this Wednesday, March 18, 2015 photo, limestone quarry workers walk through a cloud of dust spewed into the air by rotor blades of the stone-cutting machinery in the desert of Minya, southern Egypt. Around 45,000 people, including children, work in an estimated 1,500 quarries, digging out stones that later will be used in construction or powdered to be used by pharmaceutical and ceramic companies. (Photo by Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP Photo)

An Iraqi special forces soldier wears a rose in his body armor as troops move from the Yarmouk neighborhood to take another district from Islamic State militant control in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. (Photo by Maya Alleruzzo/AP Photo)

Two female soldiers have their picture taken by an army colleague at Mangyongdae. (Photo by Gavin John/Mediadrumworld.com)

Garbage men race on their tricycles along the track during the garbage men bicycle race at Ban Jelacic square in Zagreb, Croatia, 19 August 2020. Zagreb's authorities organised a street festival named “Cest is the best” despite the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia with some 219 infected people. (Photo by Antonio Bat/EPA/EFE)

A child in colorful kimono walks at Tokyo's Asakusa district on the occasion of Shichigosan celebration Thursday, October 22, 2020. The festival celebrates children aged three, five and seven for their well-being. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)