A girl walks along rice paddy fields during “National Paddy Day”, which marks the start of the annual rice planting season, in Tokha village on the outskirts of Kathmandu on June 29, 2020. Splashing mud and drinking local rice beer, Nepali farmers this week celebrated National Paddy Day to mark the beginning of the rice-planting season, despite some coronavirus lockdown measures still in place. Traditional farming songs and laughter echoed in the air as farmers waded into waterlogged fields to sow green paddy. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

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)

American actress Nicola Peltz poses on the red carpet as she arrives for the world premiere of the movie “Transformers 4: Age of Extinction” in Hong Kong Thursday, June 19, 2014. The latest installment in the blockbuster series of “Transformers” films is making its world premier not in the usual entertainment hubs of Los Angeles or New York but in the wealthy Chinese metropolis of Hong Kong, the latest sign of Hollywood's increasing focus on China's booming film market. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP 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)

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)

A 19th century bicycle safety lock is displayed in an old frame in the Museum of Domenico Agostinelli in Dragona, near Rome October 30, 2014Italian collector Domenico Agostinelli, 74, has a passion that has led him over the past 60 years to pick up and collect things of all types, from antique art to everyday objects of the past and present. His collection includes a 65-million-year-old dinosaur egg, meteor fragments, a car that once belonged to American mob boss Al Capone, a lock of hair of Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, toys, weapons, musical instruments of all kinds and many more. (Photo by Tony Gentile/Reuters)

A wide-angle view shows the ascent of the shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. In the seconds after ignition, the rocket engines' hot blast began the process of destruction. (Photo by NASA)

Female Siberian tiger Dasha yawns in the new enclosure at the zoo in Duisburg, Germany, 30 March 2016. The new facility is three times larger than the old one and will be opened to the public on the same day. (Photo by Roland Weihrauch/EPA)