When a decade ago the promoters of Burj Al Babas They got to work and began to erect buildings in a valley near Mudurnua small village located halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, its purpose was to build one of the most amazing new “mini-cities” in Türkiye. Bazas had to be one, of course. Unlike other Turkish real estate developments designed for the wealthy pockets of the Persian Gulf, Burj Al Babas did not offer modern mansions or skyscrapers. No. His bet was more exotic: it would consist of hundreds and hundreds of castles, more than 700designed with a pastiche architecture that would not be out of place at Disneyland.
Ten years after the start of construction, Burj Al Babas is a well-known landmark inside and outside Turkey; but not for the reasons that its promoters or the families who came to buy one of its castles wanted. If he is famous for anything, it is for having become a ghost towna remote valley dotted with hundreds of half-finished Disney-style fortresses.
Who wouldn’t like a Disney castle?. The directors of the Sarot Group, the Turkish company that decided to promote the surreal Burj Al Babas project, must have thought something like this more than a decade ago. Surreal both in how and where. What Sarot had in mind was to raise no more and no less than 732 Disney-style castlesall practically the same, clones of each other, like scale copies inspired by the Neuschwanstein fortressuntil forming a village in which each resident would be a “lord of the castle”.
As if that were not enough, the development would incorporate a large shopping center inspired by the capitol American, restaurants, a luxury hotel, beauty salons, spas and Turkish baths.
Burj Al Babas aspired to be a dream villa. And a resort with a clear tourist focus based on a triple bet: its peculiar pastiche architecture, the luxury and charms of its natural environment, Mudurnu, a town in the province of Bolú with no more than 6,000 inhabitants. Guardian precise that the developers’ initial goal was for half of the 732 castles to be marketed to wealthy buyers from the Persian Gulf and the rest as timeshares for tourists from Türkiye.
Castles with hot springs. It may not be as picturesque as the Disney castles, but the location chosen by the promoters is also a key part of Burj Al Babas. Mudurnu is located in the Black Sea region of Türkiye, halfway between Istanbul and the country’s capital, Ankara. It is no coincidence that Sarot looked at the region, where other projects were already being developed. Nearby there is a spring that allowed the developer to include a luxury service in each of its castles: direct access to its thermal waters through a system of canals.
As if that were not enough, in the surroundings was the quiet town of Mudurnu and an environment full of pine trees. In fact, to build the castles they had to build in a forest area of 6,500 m2something that the locals did not like. Burj Al Babas also offered an extra to buyers, one especially interesting for families from countries like the United Arab Emirates: a mild climate, with milder summers than those of the Persian Gulf.
And the works started. The project was promising on paper, so it didn’t take long for it to make the leap into reality. In 2011 the then mayor of Mudurnu gave the green light to the Sarot Group to plan the construction of 80 castles in the area. The promoter’s expectations must have been good because years later the company was allowed to expand the project until it reached staggering figures, worthy of a true mini-city: there were talks of 732 castles, in addition to extra services, such as the shopping center. That quiet Mudurnu would become a resort did not convince all residents, but its defenders argued that it would generate wealth in the region. Enough.
“Disaffected people could never adequately understand development,” claims Even today, Mehmet Inegöl, former councilor of Mudurnu, who once encouraged the project to go ahead. Despite the drift that Burj Al Babas has taken and that its promises have not been fulfilled, Inegöl claims to have no doubt that one day the detractors will be the “first to take their children to work” in the mega-development.
Not everyone sees it the same. Mehmet Cantürk, environmentalist and resident of the region, he lamented recently in Guardian of the environmental impact of the works, that the buildings ignore the architectural tradition of the area or the use of the spring. In Mudurnu there are those who see the towers of Burj Al Babas as authentic “Dracula castles”, rather than as friendly Disney mansions.
The works are advancing, and the marketing. The works started around 2014. And for a time they advanced more than visibly, plaguing the valley outside Mudurnu with concrete facades and towers. On the project website, still active, there is a section that documents how they progressed the work during its initial stages. Not only that. Marketing also seemed to be going from strength to strength.
The prospect of owning a castle in Turkey was liked in countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia, where the developer dedicated herself to showing off the dream city she was building between Istanbul and Ankara. After all, they were promised to be owners of castles. Castles surrounded by castles, true; but castles after all. There were even those who saw in them winks to the famous Galata Tower wave Maiden’s Towerboth icons of Istanbul.
Not all buildings were sold at the same price. There were differences between them due to issues such as their location or whether they were more or less close to what were expected to be the busiest streets. On the promotion website you can still consult your catalog. Even so, whoever wanted to get one of the peculiar Burj Al Babas mansions had to contribute a more than considerable sum: between 370,000 and 530,000 dollars, according to the data which runs Arch Daily. Jassim Alfahhada colonel from Kuwait, is one of those who were seduced by the promises of the development and is now leading a group of almost 150 buyers who paid between 150,000 and 450,000 dollars.
Click on the image to go to the tweet.
From dream city to ghost city. The fact that the works and marketing were already advanced did not prevent Burj Al Babas from becoming something very different from what it aspired to: a ghost city, plagued not by Disney castles, but by abandoned concrete buildings, extinguished by the passing of the years. without its construction being completed.
The turning point of the project arrived in 2016when the works stopped. By then some 587 castlesnear the 80%of the total, which its owners have never been able to occupy. Instead, the dystopian landscape of Burj Al Babas has become a peculiar tourist attraction for lovers of abandoned architecture and youtubers that have shown the state of the unfortunate urbanization with its drones.
Why did the project go awry? There are many theories. Those who have analyzed what happened – and have run over it rivers of ink over the last few years—have pointed both to internal problems, of the promoter and its buyers, and to the economic and political context of the country: debt, non-payments of clients and workers, cancellations of operations, political tensions, problems with the contractor …Whether one factor or another weighed more, the truth is that in 2018 Sarot Group, with the Turkish lira depreciating, declared bankruptcy and the 587 half-finished castles entered a long period of impasse to the despair of the buyers who had advanced large sums for them.
New life at Burj Al Babas? More than a decade has passed since the start of work in the vicinity of Mudurnu and more than five years from the deadline agreed by the developer to deliver the keys to the castles to their owners, and if Burj Al Babas is known for something today, it is for its almost dreamlike landscape of hundreds and hundreds of abandoned towers in the middle of Turkey.
Of course, perhaps it is not condemned to remain like this forever. Alfahhad, one of the Kuwaiti buyers, sees it as feasible: “We remain optimistic and believe it will end soon,” he recently acknowledged to Guardian the former colonel, who together with the rest of those affected try to ensure that the matter does not fall into oblivion.
Signs for hope. In May, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met with the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, and buyers hope that the situation of the abandoned castles was among the topics they boarded. A few months ago, in summer, circle also between the press turkish the news that an American holding company is interested in taking over the old project.
The question remains whether Burj Al Babas will manage to be a city of Disney castles, as its promoters once conceived, or if it is condemned to be a disastrous cluster of Dracula castles, which is how some inhabitants of neighboring Mudurnu see it.
Images |Burj Al Babas and Google Earth
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