The sad saga of Turkey’s abandoned village of Disney-like castles
16-March-2021

Turkey is one intriguing, ancient historic Middle East country, brimming with some gorgeous architecture from the past. But, do you know the country is also home to blue-grey steeple houses that exactly look like some Disney movie castles? These pretty homes were built in 2014 by the Sarot Group under Project Burj Al Babas.

The developers built these luxury abodes with the hope that it would appeal to wealthy buyers from overseas. But sadly, that did not happen and these $200 million homes sit empty and abandoned in the mountains.

So what went wrong? Well, apparently, it’s not only a problem unique to Turkey. Big cities such as Tokyo, Las Vegas, New York, Spain and Burgos too are dotted with such gorgeous abandoned properties. However, none of them look as eerie as the Burj Al Babas.

Situated close to the town of Mudurnu in Turkey, these homes can be bought at $400000 to $500000 each. There are 732 villas in the project but only 350 were sold to Arab investors. According to the architect of the project, the buyers were impacted by the decrease in oil prices.

A number of world level economic analysts have blamed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's for this mishap. His decision of spending excessive on such luxury infrastructure projects left him borrowing from foreign banks. But, due to the fall in the value of the lira (Turkey’s currency), foreign investors began to pull out of the projects, which led the country towards recession.