A police officer has weapons blessed by a Hindu priest during the Vishwakarma Puja festival in the outskirts of Agartala, India, September 17, 2016. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

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 groundskeeper uses a bamboo broom at Kasumigaike Pond at Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, Japan on January 12, 2016. The japanese garden, located next to Kanazawa Castle, encompasses over 28 acres in downtown Kanazawa. With two ponds, rolling hills with streams and bridges, is considered a strolling-style landscape garden. It's regarded as one of the top three most beautiful gardens in Japan. (Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

A tourist poses on the glass-bottom bridge at Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon on August 20, 2016 in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province of China. The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon's glass-bottomed bridge welcame its trial operation on Saturday and about 8,000 tourists crowded to view the grand glass bridge. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

In this Friday, August 9, 2019, file photo, Pakistan Rangers soldiers face Indian Border Security Force soldiers at a daily closing ceremony on the Indian side of the Attari-Wagah border. India's recent clampdown has a long history in Kashmir and the conflict has existed since the late 1940s, when India and Pakistan won independence from the British empire and began fighting over rival claims to the Muslim-majority territory. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three subsequent wars over Kashmir, and each administers a portion of the region. India has long seen the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination as Islamabad's proxy war against New Delhi. (Photo by Prabhjot Gill/AP Photo/File)

Members of the Chinese military orchestra march past a screen showing the Chinese Communist flag on Tiananmen Square before a celebration marking the 100th founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, in Beijing, China, 01 July 2021. China celebrates on 01 July the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. (Photo by Roman Pilipey/EPA/EFE)

A tourist experiences bungee jumping at the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon scenic area on July 12, 2021 in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province of China. (Photo by Wu Yongbing/VCG via Getty Images)

The sun begins to set over this rusty beachside mansion that has been left abandoned for more than 25 years in Thailand, June 2017. A deserted beachside mansion in southern Thailand has retained its beauty – despite no one living there for more than 25 years. In June this year abandoned photographer, Dax Ward, ventured to the Prachuap Khiri-Khan Province to capture the haunting attraction on camera. (Photo by Dax Ward/Barcroft Images)