Wai Ching Jason Poon of Hong Kong competes in the Men's 1m Springboard preliminary round during Day One of the 14th FINA World Championships at the Oriental Sports Center on July 16, 2011 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

Linda Cerruti of Italy competes in the Synchronized Swimming Solo Tech preliminary round during Day Two of the 14th FINA World Championships at the Oriental Sports Center on July 17, 2011 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

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)

Sorana Cirstea of Romania hits the ball against Jie Zheng if China during the Sony Ericsson Open at Crandon Park Tennis Center on March 22, 2011 in Key Biscayne, Florida.

The new 2011 Volkswagen Passant Variant (L) and new Golf Cabrio are lifted into one of two storage towers at the Autostadt customer reception center at the Volkswagen factory on the day of the German automaker's annual press conference on March 10, 2011 in Wolfsburg, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Makers assemble the “Transformer X2” built by Chinese cartoon fans Sui Lulu, Zhang Yiming and Li Wei, was displayed at an exhibition center on October 8, 2007 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)