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Turkey’s $200 Million Ghost Town: The Abandoned Valley of Castles
Deep in the heart of northwestern Turkey lies one of the most bizarre and haunting architectural sights in the world — a $200 million “ghost town” filled with hundreds of small castle-like villas. What was once envisioned as a luxurious European-style village now stands eerily empty, its fairytale towers slowly decaying against the backdrop of the Turkish countryside.
Known as Burj Al Babas, this ambitious project was launched in 2014 by the Sarot Group, a construction company that promised to create an exclusive resort town nestled between Istanbul and Ankara. The development planned to feature 732 identical mini-castles, complete with Gothic spires, marble interiors, and private pools. Each home was designed to sell for between $400,000 and $500,000, mainly targeting wealthy buyers from the Middle East and Europe.
At first, the vision seemed to capture the spirit of Turkey’s booming real estate market. Rows of white, turreted villas rose from the valley, giving the impression of a Disney-like kingdom built in the middle of nowhere. However, as economic troubles mounted and oil prices fell in the Middle East — the developers’ key market — sales collapsed.
By 2018, the Sarot Group filed for bankruptcy with debts of over $27 million, and construction abruptly stopped. What remained was a surreal landscape of more than 500 half-finished castles, all nearly identical, standing silent and unoccupied.
Today, Burj Al Babas is a modern ruin — a ghost town worth an estimated $200 million that never saw a single resident. Nature has started to reclaim the area, with weeds creeping through marble courtyards and rainwater filling unfinished basements. The once-grand vision of a luxury retreat has turned into a symbol of economic overreach and misplaced ambition.
Despite occasional talk of reviving the project, progress has been minimal. Tourists and photographers occasionally visit the site to capture its haunting beauty — a forest of castles without kings, where silence echoes through empty halls.
Burj Al Babas now stands as a strange monument to Turkey’s construction boom gone wrong — a place where fantasy met financial failure, leaving behind a ghostly fairytale frozen in time.
In short:
• Location: Mudurnu, Bolu Province, Turkey
• Value: Estimated $200 million
• Houses built: Around 530 completed of 732 planned
• Developer: Sarot Group
• Status: Abandoned since 2019
• Nickname: “Turkey’s Ghost Town of Castles”
A dream of luxury turned into one of the world’s most surreal urban ruins — Burj Al Babas remains a chilling reminder that even castles can crumble when built on fragile foundations.
Attached is a news article regarding turkey 200 million ghost town filled with castles
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/turkey-castle-ghost-town
Article written and configured by Christopher Stanley
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