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

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

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.

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

Marked by the hand of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley.

The cathedral stands in New Jufa, Isfahan's Armenian quarter that was established in 1606.

This 17th-century structure is a beautiful testimony to traditional Persian architecture

Named after a legendary garden called Eram in southern Arabia, built by order of Shaddad, an Arab king who wanted to compete with Paradise.

This circular Iranian jail was once a political prison run by the country's secret police.

Salt cured mummies continue to turn up in this Iranian mine.

Putrefaction plateaus in Iran, where the dead were sent for decontamination before going to their final resting place.

Mirrors and glass shards cover every inch of this arrestingly beautiful mosque.

The palace of the King of Kings, burned by Alexander the Great.

A spectacular rainbow of stained glass makes the "Pink Mosque" one of the most beautiful in Iran.

This mysterious but iconic tapered tower appears in many Azeri fairytales and legends.

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

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

A gigantic collection of teeny, tiny books.

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

A cluster of historic bathhouses built on the famed hot springs that gave the Georgian capital its name.

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

A small but hugely whimsical theater where marionettes play out the "The Battle of Stalingrad."

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