This mysterious complex of abandoned yurts and fading murals was meant to be a center of science and spirituality in Kyrgyzstan.

According to one story, this burial mound is made up of stones that represent the casualties of a major battle.

This ancient fort has been a great insight into the Roman presence in the region.

Built entirely of interlocking pieces, construction of this Chinese Muslim house of worship required zero nails.

Time capsule of a museum, in which the Soviet Union remains alive and kicking.

A sober museum housed in the original administrative building of one of Stalin's largest gulags.

This was once the largest city in Kazakhstan, and a major stop on the Silk Road.

A collection of Lenin busts and other Soviet Era statues sit idly behind the Semipalatinsk Hotel.

One of the most horrible legacies of the Cold War is a site where the Soviet Union tested nuclear bombs on civilians.

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

This unique wooden mosque resembling a Chinese pagoda was said to be built without the use of nails.

The lovely lake that was naturally dammed, then naturally destroyed, then unnaturally saved.

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

Granny Smiths and Fujis can both be traced back to Kazakhstan, where apples still grow wild.

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

An abandoned Soviet-era mining town in the mountains of South Kazakhstan.

A series of caves under Castle Hill that once held the prisoner Vlad Tepes, better known as Count Dracula.

On Gellért Hill, this statue depicts the tragic tale of lovers divided by the Danube.

A triumphant marble and bronze fountain depicting a 15th-century Hungarian king and his hunting party.

Some of the greatest minds in the history of Hungarian art and science converged in this café.

A Trabant car, a kangaroo statue, and a plethora of plants take over this abandoned-factory-turned-bar.

Museum dedicated to the terror regimes of Hungary.

Budapest's Communist-era statues, banished to the suburbs.

A two-way chairlift system between Zugliget and the highest point in the city.