A cloud of black smoke billows out the exhaust pipe of John Robertson's diesel dragster as he runs down the track during the 2015 NHRA Kansas Nationals, Friday, May 22, 2015, at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan. (Photo by Chris Neal/The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP Photo)

The Doppler on Wheels (DOW) vehicle scans a supercell thunderstorm during a tornado research mission, May 8, 2017 in Elbert County near Agate, Colorado. Doppler on Wheels (DOW) is a mobile doppler radar mounted on a truck that brings instruments directly into storms, allowing scientists to scan storms and tornadoes and make 3-D maps of wind and debris. (Photo by Drew Angerer/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)

The front wheels of a tractor lift off the ground as the driver moves a heavy trailer outside Peshawar, Pakistan February 19, 2018. (Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)

Saudi youths demonstrate a stunt known as “sidewall skiing” (driving on two wheels) in the northern city of Tabuk, in Saudi Arabia December 3, 2014. (Photo by Mohamed Al Hwaity/Reuters)

A man transports the carcass of a car on a two- wheeled carriage in a neighborhood in Abobo, a suburb of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on December 1, 2017. (Photo by Issouf Sanogo/AFP Photo)

Aerial Emery trains on the cyr wheel at the Aloft Loft circus training and teaching school which was converted from a church, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., September 20, 2016. (Photo by Jim Young/Reuters)