Mongol

Fantastic lake on the heart of a fault line.

Ottoman-era houses lovingly preserved.

A Turkish monastery tucked into a cliff wall.

A gleaming white and undulating tower marks the border between Georgia and Turkey.

Tower with a double-helix spiral, adorned with letters of the Georgian alphabet.

A shipwreck named Desire at the shore of Batumi.

Underground monastery and fortress.

A museum glorifying the life of Stalin, located in the city of his birth.

Rock-hewn monastery complex with hundreds of cave structures tucked away into the mountainside.

Foreign invaders almost left this lovely Caucasus palace alone—almost.

Home to nearly a third of the world's mud volcanoes, Azerbaijan is home to a messy, bubbling, and sometimes explosive landscape.

Mysterious spherical rocks in the semi-desert of western Kazakhstan.

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

World's oldest and largest space launch facility, once a secret missile testing site.

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

Beatlemania is still going strong... at least in Kazakhstan.

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

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

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

Unusual, mushroom-like rock formations caused by weathering and water erosion, set to disappear, according to geologists.

A mysterious phallic rock on the grounds of a Buddhist monastery.

People have been scribbling on this massive chunk of granite for more than 1,500 years.

Dinosaur eggs were first discovered at these fiery red cliffs.

The grassy landscape is home to the world's last truly wild horses.

Enormous statue of the Emperor of the Mongols.

This spiritual landmark for practicers of Shamanism is drenched in milk and vodka and covered in blue scarves.

The mummified remains of Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, Russia's most important Buddhist.

This massive glowering Lenin head gazes out over eastern Siberia.

A uniquely authentic display of traditional Russian culture.

The remains of a monument in the remote Kazakhstani desert dedicated to the only men to die in outer space, the crew of the Soyuz 11 rocket.

Avenue of trees planted by cosmonauts before their space departures.

Iconic pyramid from famed British architect Norman Foster designed to represent all of the world's religious faiths.

A Stalinist prison camp for the wives and children of men accused of betraying the Soviet state is now a memorial museum.

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