A woman uses a plastic bad to protect her head amid snowfall in Beijing, China on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

A model takes part in the Necropolis – Tanexpo 2021 international exhibition of funeral accessories, services and commemorative art at Moscow's Expocentre in Moscow, Russia on October 26, 2021. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/TASS)

A woman in Kimono poses for photos in front of mimosa and cherry blossom trees in Tokyo on March 8, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP Photo)

People take part in the Festival of Colors at Asanbai Park in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 27 May 2023. The festival brings together young people sprinkling each other with colored powder to pay homage to India's traditional Holi festival. (Photo by Igor Kovalenko/EPA/EFE)

Manchester United's Amad Diallo, left, challenges for the ball with Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Chelsea at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, September 20, 2025. (Photo by Dave Thompson/AP Photo)

An Oktoberfest visitor swings her dirndl, at the start of Oktoberfest, on Munich's Theresienwiese, in Germany, Saturday, September 20, 2025. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa via AP 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)

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)