Turkmenistan

Absolutely amazing country with its own special world. Here the clearly narcissistic rulers erect gold monuments to their favorites, write instructive books about all walks of life, make music videos for their own songs, and deny the presence of the coronavirus in the country. In general, it is like North Korea, with the difference that it is easier to visit North Korea as a tourist - you just need to buy an official tour.

This scheme will not work with Turkmenistan. There are tour operators and tourist visa, but almost no one can get it. This is not a story about specific countries, like that conditional Syrian hardly get in conditional USA - Turkmen equalized all and refuse regardless of citizenship. Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a name difficult to pronounce, decided to limit contacts of his subjects with the outside world and does not allow foreigners into the country. By the way, it is also quite difficult for Turkmens to go abroad.

For a long time, there was a loophole in the form of a transit visa. Citizens of the former Soviet Union applied for it in Iran and asked to transit to visa-free Uzbekistan. The visas were usually issued for five days, during which time one could see the center of Ashgabat, richly decorated with marble, gilded statues and the Darwaza crater burning in the middle of the desert. But now that opportunity has been shut down, and there is no hope of improvement.

Ascension Island

A volcanic island in the South Atlantic. It is part of one of the British Overseas Territories, which are islands scattered around the globe that are subject to British sovereignty but are not part of Britain. For example, the laws here may be local, but the verdicts are handed down by British judges, who come here from Europe on purpose from time to time. In addition to the British pound sterling, they have their own currency and the UK army is there to defend this piece of land from enemies.

Visa policy here is also different from the British, and Turkmen ideas of equality have not taken root here - citizens of some countries can get here by applying for an electronic visa, while for others entry to the island is simply prohibited by local laws. Among the latter are Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Black List is small - only 13 states, but the company of three post-Soviet republics picked up a worthy match: Vietnam, Hong Kong, Egypt, Iran, China, Libya, Macau, North Korea, Syria and Taiwan.

The fact is that there is a British-American military base on the island, as well as a British-American radio-electronic reconnaissance station, a GPS antenna, laboratories, NASA and the European Space Agency. Before the turn of the century there was no tourism here in principle, although it was rather due to the inaccessibility of the island.

Tourists whose passports do not arouse suspicion usually arrive on the island during Atlantic cruises. If the waves allow you to dock the island by boat, you can go ashore and see the few local attractions: birds, turtles, colonial architecture and "the world's worst golf course" - so at one time even the official website of the island called a site studded with volcanic sand with holes without a single blade of grass.