Looking for a unifying history, Uzbekistan finds its answer in a 14th Century Turco-Mongol conqueror... despite the fact he wasn't Uzbek.

An 18-meter-long sarcophagus of a constantly growing dead prophet.

Light still pours into the ruins of this ancient Islamic observatory.

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

Where Stoddart and Connolly suffered in the infamous Bug Pit.

This "tower of death" has acted as an observatory, a religious hub, and an executioner's lair.

These "50 Fortresses" have been unearthed in the ancient oasis of Khwarezm.

The official meeting point for the oddly named governing assembly of ancient Sweden.

The ruins of a monastery where Saint Bridget of Sweden had her revelations recorded.

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

The ruins of an ancient Zoroastrian Tower of Silence believed to be the earliest example of the traditional funerary practice.

Rusting ships sit in a desert where a sea used to be.

Once a bustling fishing port, this semi-ghost town is now more than 90 miles away from the shore.

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

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

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

A cemetery with goat-horn bedecked gravestones.

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

An eccentric dictator's take on a Turkmen version of Disneyland.

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

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

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

Stockholm's narrowest alley is barely over two feet wide.

The world's largest underground iron ore mine.