A huge monument to a bizarre book written by Turkmenistan’s longstanding dictator.

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

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

This harsh mountain path was built as a strange attempt to improve the health of Turkmen citizens.

Few people have ever heard of, let alone visited, one of Turkmenistan’s most impressive natural attractions.

If you want to get married in the White Marble City of Ashgabat, you should do it in this surreal disco ball building.

A cemetery with goat-horn bedecked gravestones.

This cavernous swimming spot doubles as a home to the largest known colony of bats in Central Asia.

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

While the U.S. and Soviet Union were engaged in a space race, Poland built a UFO on the ground.

A Soviet era flat that refused to conform to the dull gray standards.

In the midst of a living monument to Soviet social engineering, Polish Catholics built this church by hand.

This sprawling concrete suburb of Kraków was designed by the Soviet Union as the model proletarian city.

This is not only one of the oldest collections in Europe, but also possibly the most beautiful.

Holy Hindu shrine in an enormous, monkey-filled limestone cavern.

This Arctic storage facility is a secure backup for agricultural biodiversity.

If a glacial river suddenly diving into a sheer chasm via a dramatic, multi-stage waterfall isn't peak Iceland, it's certainly close.

This collection of odd proofs of concept is like taking a walk through the imagination of a Victorian engineer.

Nicknamed “The Mushroom,” this unique water tower has been featured in several iconic movie scenes.

Also known as the Square Colosseum, this building is a prime example of fascist-era rationalist architecture.

A secret hatch containing two parchments was discovered in this statue over 40 years after its installation.

This monastery set over a holy cave contains the oldest known painting of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The encased skull that is widely believed to belong to St. John the Baptist.

A dad joke was inevitable when a member of this 19th-century chocolatier family married the president of France.