A wild plan to build a luxury development of over 700 Disney-style castles failed when the developers went bankrupt with the Black Sea resort almost complete.
As a haunting reminder of the broken dreams, the fantasy village is now empty.
The luxury villas of Burj Al Babas that were designed to be reminiscent of classic French architecture have been abandoned.
About 350 of the 730 villas Naci Yoruk designed were sold to Arab investors.
According to The New York Times, most of the sales, if not all, have fallen through.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Construction began on the complex in 2014. The project was built by 2,500 workers. Developers promised that the project would be completed in four years.
The luxurious development was originally planned to house a shopping center, 400-person health spa with Turkish baths, as well as a cinema.
A catalogue produced by the developers promised cinemas, restaurants, fast-food areas, children’s playgrounds, conference halls and meeting rooms with free broadband access and a car wash.
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(Image: Supplied)
The site in Turkey’s northern Bolu province even boasted its own underground hot springs, with water bubbling from the ground at over 68C.
The development of 324-square-metre plots isn’t far from the town of Mudurnu, halfway between Turkey’s largest city Istanbul and its capital Ankara
Unfortunately, despite promising early sales not enough people paid in advance for the £400,000 castles.
(Image: Getty Images)
The combination of the 2018 financial crisis in Turkey and a sudden rise in fuel prices proved to be the last straw.
In 2019 the developers filed for bankruptcy with debts totalling over £19 million.
Sarot Group Chairman Mehmet Emin Yerdelen blamed the company’s collapse on “deadbeat clients”.
(Image: Supplied)
“We couldn’t get about 7.5 million dollars receivables for the villas we have sold to Gulf countries,” he told Turkish newspaper Hurriyet in 2018.
“We applied for bankruptcy protection but the court ruled for bankruptcy. We will appeal the ruling.”
He said that he still believed that the project could be revived and that he needed to sell 100 villas for a profit. However, not much has changed since then.
If you have a spare £300k lying around and you can track down Mr Yerdelen, one of these bizarre fairytale castles could be yours…