Fate of castles in the air in Turkey’s £151m ghost town

Drone footage of 300 chateaux in abandoned development lays bare challenges facing Turkish economy



Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
Mon 28 Jan 2019 11.59 GMT

Drone footage of an eerie abandoned urban development of mini castles in Turkey has shone a light on the troubles facing the country’s economy.

Burj al Babas, billed as a luxury housing development near Mudurnu, a village roughly halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, was left unfinished last year after its developers Sarot Property Group went bankrupt.

The future of the 300 closely packed chateaux – which cost an estimated £151m to build – is now uncertain and the project has become a cautionary tale for other developers in Turkey’s debt-laden construction sector.

Work began in 2014 on units primarily designed as holiday homes for wealthy Gulf tourists. The plans also included Turkish baths and an entertainment complex.

Only a handful of the £379,000 Disney-style homes were sold, however, and several investors have since pulled out, Mezher Yerdelen, deputy chair of the Sarot Property Group, told Agence France-Presse.

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The construction project has long been hated by Mudurnu locals, who say it is not in keeping with the area’s traditional architecture, characterised by Byzantine buildings, traditional Ottoman wooden houses and a 600-year-old mosque.

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