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)

An animal rights activist washes herself with red dye to mimic blood during a protest against the testing of shampoo on animals in Barcelona. April 24, 2012. (Photo by Raul Albaledo/AFP Photo)

Ismail Mustafa, seen in 2007. “I was collecting mushrooms on the hill near here. I didn’t see the mine. There was a huge explosion. When I woke up I saw that both my legs were gone; I thought my life was over. My brother and another guy were with me. They made a stretcher from sticks and tied it together with clothing. It took two hours to get off the mountain. ‘My daughter has also been injured. She found a shell and brought it into the house and put it on the fire. She didn’t know what she was doing at the time – she was only three. She is blind and has lost an arm”. (Photo by Sean Sutton for the Mines Advisory Group/The Guardian)

A drunk student is sick on the street watched by a police officer following a night of heavy drinking during freshers week in United Kingdom on November 28, 2007. (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Alamy Stock Photo)

Giving out with a yell, Elke Sommer is tossed on the trampoline as she trains for her movie role as an athlete, on the playing field of the University of California at Los Angeles, June 8, 1967. (Photo by AP Photo)

An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal, in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 11, 2017. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A woman reacts with flour over her face while playing a game with cake-making ingredients as part of local festivities marking Myanmar's 70th Independence Day in Yangon on January 4, 2018. The country is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its declaration of independence from British colonial rule. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP Photo)

Actress Hayley Hasselhoff leads models, diversity campaigners and social media influencers question the lack of curves in the female fashion industry outside 180 The Strand on February 16, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Neil P. Mockford/Getty Images)