This giant statue is the product of a mixture of corruption, Stalinist architecture, and North Korean manpower.

This tiny, tranquil Senegalese island serves as a powerful symbol of the Atlantic slave trade.

An underground world of gorgeous, palatial metro stations designed as a nuclear shelter complex.

The Avenue of Mausolea is a series of grand palatial tombs.

Controversially restored in the 1970s, this giant 15th-century mosque is shrouded in legend.

This famed Silk Road oasis was one of the largest cities in the world before it was destroyed by a Mongol horde.

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

A dictator's gold statue once rotated to face the sun on a 75-meter high marble tower.

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.

Ancient barriers wrap around what was once an important stop along the Silk Road.

Beatlemania is still going strong... at least in Kazakhstan.

This Soviet statue is based on a piece of propaganda that's been elevated to national myth.