A spectacular Petrine Baroque summer palace commissioned for Catherine I by Peter the Great.

The Frank Zappa fan club erected this monument to their prog-rock hero to mark a new era of post-Soviet Lithuania.

Dedicated to the writer who immortalized the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance of those who died in wars.

Canada's subterranean Cold War museum has doubled as a movie set.

Louise Bourgeois' 30-foot-tall steel spider sculpture.

The record holder for the world’s largest peach.

The mastermind behind this palatial hotel perished on the Titanic weeks before its grand opening.

An ancient octagonal weather station named for the eight Greek gods of wind.

A fantastic array of trays and cables once whisked books over to the Capitol at 600 feet per minute.

The 5.5-mile ring of steel posts around the Capitol Building is one of the largest (and most uniform) of its kind in the world.

This groundbreaking 16th-century map is known as "America's birth certificate."

Lonely minaret stump of a destroyed city.

This retro, UFO-like structure is a remnant of the Soviet-era circus.

Glacial lake that mysteriously empties itself every year.

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

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

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

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

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

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.

The heartbeat of modern Uzbekistan’s thriving market culture.

Home to what was once considered the largest gate in central Asia.

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