Places JonAkzar Wants to Go

Qshla Koya is an Ottoman fortress located on a hillock in the central quarter of Koya.

This former monument to an invented Iraqi victory was turned into a military camp during the subsequent invasion.

This remnant of an ancient Persian city is considered to be the world's largest single-span brick vault arch.

A bloody history is captured in this former prison turned museum.

An ancient sanctuary that has long been a holy site for the Chaldean Christian Church.

A giant bisected onion dome remembers the Iraqis who died in the Iran-Iraq War.

Giant reed houses made in the marshes of Southern Iraq.

This beautiful arched gate is all that remains of the fortress the ancient mountaintop town of Amadiya once was.

Ancient rock-cut tomb? Definitely. That of a great Median king? Unlikely.

An ancient fortified mound raised over the millennia from settlements built one on top of the other.

The sacred shrine of the Yazidis.

9th century Abbasid mosque, damaged in modern warfare.

Celebrated as a center of civilization, the remains of the ancient city have been nearly destroyed by greed, egoism, and war.

The remains of a medieval city loom in one of the most isolated desert regions of Turkmenistan.

A memorial to the thousands of Turkmen soldiers and civilians who died in a bloody 1881 battle.

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

A cave covered with bizarre stalactites of cloth.

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

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

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

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

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.

One of the oldest monasteries in the world is a key pilgrimage site for both Muslims and Christians.