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 demonstrator throw a firebomb during clashes with Turkish riot police officers in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2015. The government assigned 30,000 police officers backed by helicopters as workers and demonstrators determined to defy a government ban, tried to march to iconic Taksim Square, where 35 people were killed during May Day celebration in 1977. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

Penguins Momo and Omochi are seen while the projection mapping images is being cast during a media preview for their free online animal shows for children and families staying at home during Golden Week holidays due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown, at the Aqua Park Shinagawa in Tokyo, Japan on April 30, 2020. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Festival goers splash through a muddy puddle at Worthy Farm in Somerset, on the third day of the Glastonbury music festival June 27, 2014. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

Residents protest a police operation targeting drug traffickers in the Jacarezinho favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 6, 2021. At least 25 people died during the operation, including one police officer and 24 suspects, according to the press office of Rio's civil police. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

An ascetic performs yoga at his makeshift tent near the banks of Sangam -the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati river during the Magh Mela festival in Allahabad on January 28, 2022. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

A mural depicting Prime Minister Scott Morrison wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, orange lei and Santa Claus hat while holding a cocktail by artist Scott Marsh is seen on a wall in Sydney, Wednesday, December 25, 2019. Morrison was under pressure since taking a much criticized family vacation to Hawaii during the wildfire crisis.(Photo by Steven Saphore/AAP Images via AP Photo)

People perform during this year's flashmob of silly walks, based on the sketch from the television show Monty Python's Flying Circus by Monty Python troup, in Budapest, Hungary, 01 April 2019. (Photo by Zoltán Balogh/EPA/EFE)