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 Palestinian boy holds an umbrella as he runs near houses that witnesses said were destroyed or damaged by Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, on a rainy day in the east of Gaza City November 16, 2014. (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

The Royal Castle is seen a veil of heavy winter smog in Budapest, Hungary on January 30, 2017. (Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters)

A couple wears face masks as they share a moment during sunset on January 31, 2020 in Hong Kong, China. With over 9800 confirmed cases of Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) around the world, the virus has so far claimed over 200 lives. (Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

The sun rises over St Mary's Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on the Northumberland coast as a flock of Lapwing seabirds fly past on Wednesday, September 30, 2015. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Using his camera skills, Marc meters the background sky in order to achieve the beautiful black silhouettes of the wildlife, Africa, 2010-2016. (Photo by Marc Mol/Barcroft Images)

A Ballet Paraisópolis student wearing a face mask rehearses amidst the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on August 13, 2020 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Ballet Paraisópolis is a project that teaches dance to children and young people in the Paraisópolis community in order to encourage them to seek better life opportunities. Founded in 2012 by ballerina, teacher and choreographer, Monica Tarragó, Ballet Paraisópolis has a total of 200 students and another 2,000 on the waiting list. (Photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

An open water swimmer surfaces as she enjoys a socially-distanced dawn swim after breaking the ice on the surface of a lake near Scunthorpe, northern England, January 9, 2021. Faced by a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, driven by the new strain, England entered a strict lockdown on January 5, 2021, with schools and non-essential shops closed for at least six weeks after previous measures failed to halt the steep rise in cases. (Photo by Lindsey Parnaby/AFP Photo)