The remains of a medieval city loom in one of the most isolated desert regions of Turkmenistan.

A memorial to the thousands of Turkmen soldiers and civilians who died in a bloody 1881 battle.

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 cave covered with bizarre stalactites of cloth.

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.

Leaking natural gas never stops burning on this hill, making it an infinite inferno.

A graveyard of old and rare planes that once were the glory of Persian aviation.

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 steamship has been beautifully rusting off the coast of an Iranian island since the 1960s.

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

This ancient fortress in Iran was once the oldest and largest treasury in the world.

These little castles each held thousands of pigeons.

This vast, water-filled underground labyrinth can only be toured by boat.

The ancient necropolis houses the immense rock-cut tombs of four Persian kings.

One of the world's largest salt caves is filled with fragile salt sculptures, salt rivers, and huge salt megadomes.

Modern-day cave dwellers carve elaborate homes out of volcanic debris.

17th century mosque for Shah Abbas' harem.

Hydraulic systems in an ancient underground Iranian city.

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

A 1,500-year-old, 3-story subterranean city where ancient Persians took refuge in times of war.

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

Iran's colorful terraces are a rare geological masterpiece.