The building's fluid, wavelike walls are a true feat of architectural ingenuity.

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

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

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

A shrine of fire worship built on top of a natural flame.

Mysterious hillside with a continuously burning natural fire.

The controversial final resting place of the equally controversial first president of Turkmenistan.

The first version of this stalwart construction appeared around 3,000 years ago.

The world's second-tallest flagpole stands proud despite dropping rank.

A building facade covered with the statues of 11 giants of Tajik literature.

Nicknamed Kazakhstan's Grand Canyon, this natural wonder lies east of Almaty near the Chinese border.

Submerged trees jut ghost-like out of an idyllic turquoise mountain lake.

An outstanding piece of retro Sci-Fi architecture built into a sacred mountain.

These rugged, color-stained mountains hold the secrets of the Kazakh desert.

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

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

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

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

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

This Soviet-era athletic and recreation facility is the highest ice skating rink in the world.

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

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.

In Kazakhstan, a colorful cathedral with many lives once survived the most powerful earthquake in the region.