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 wounded Syrian girl looks on at a make shift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015. At least 20 civilians and wounded or trapped 200 in Douma, a monitoring group said, just six days after regime air strikes killed more than 100 people and sparked international condemnation of one of the bloodiest government attacks in Syria's war. (Photo by Abd Doumany/AFP Photo)

Rick Sorenson, owner of the Rio Ramaza Marina, wades in the Sacramento River after securing an old paddlewheel boat on his property as the river makes its way up the levee on Garden Highway in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, January 9, 2017. (Photo by Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee via AP Photo)

Cottbus Aviation Museum specialists prepare a Soviet Tupolev 134 A passenger plane for dismantlement in Gruenz, Germany, 10 July 2017. The team is preparing the 29 ton plane for transport from a garden in Gruenz to the Aviation Museum in Cottbus. The plane' s owner acquired it in 1991 and transported it with nine tractors and numerous helpers to his vegetable garden where he planned to open a cafe. The plane, formerly used by the East German Stasi for anti- terror operations training, is 30 metres long. (Photo by Jens Büttner/Zentralbild/DPA)

Bathing suit models are shown listening to the radio on the beach, circa 1940's. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

A traffic police officer directs vehicles at a street junction during sunset in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, August 25, 2016. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)

A climber walks on the ridge beneath the eastern peak of the Gamsberg (2385 meters above sea level) near Grabs, Switzerland, Friday, October 3, 2014. (Photo by Gian Ehrenzeller/AP Photo/Keystone)

A Buddhist nun walks along a path as a stupa is seen at a temple in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka October 16, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)