Tour guides wearing traditional Chinese dress practice smiling by biting chopsticks at Qingming Grand-River Park in Kaifeng, central China's Henan Province on March 2, 2017, aiming to provide better service for visitors. (Photo by IPA Asia via ZUMA Wire)

In this image released on October 1, Russian model Irina Shayk is seen onstage during Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 presented by Amazon Prime Video at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California; and broadcast on October 2, 2020. (Photo by Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)

Syrians gather during an evacuation operation of rebel fighters and their families from rebel-held neighbourhoods on December 15, 2016 in the embattled city of Aleppo. A convoy of ambulances and buses left rebel territory in Aleppo in the first evacuations under a deal for opposition fighters to leave the city after years of fighting. The rebel withdrawal will pave the way for President Bashar al-Assad's forces to reclaim complete control of Syria's second city, handing the regime its biggest victory in more than five years of civil war. (Photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP Photo)

A worker walks through a salt pan on the eve of May Day or Labour Day on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Chennai April 30, 2014. India is the third largest salt producing country in the world after China and U.S. with global annual production about 230 million tonnes, according to government data. (Photo by Reuters/Babu)

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)

A hippopotamus performs during a show at the circus in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, July 7, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Female of pygmy hippopotamus called Malaya from Netherlands in zoo in Dvur Kralove nad Labem, Czech Republic, February 22, 2016. (Photo by David Tanecek/CTK via ZUMA Press)

Young girls perform in front of the monument to Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin during the City Day celebrations in Yekaterinburg, Russia on August 19, 2017. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)