Disneyland Turkey's Disneyland Spirit City: the desert location of Burj Al Babas, home to magnificent Disney-inspired palaces.

Burj Al Babas is a real estate project that went completely the wrong way - here's its story.

Drive a few kilometers south of the northwestern Turkish resort town of Mudurnu and you'll come across a very strange sight. Here you will find a whole town of hundreds of Disney-style mini palaces, with towers and overly glamorous turrets. However, there is not a single person here - or even a road. The place is called Burj Al Babas, and it's a ghost town made up of unfinished mini castles that were apparently inspired by French chateaux. There are now almost 600 palaces, although there should have been more than 700.

So, why are all these palaces just standing there, completely empty? The Burj Al Babas was originally a luxury real estate project. Construction began in 2014, but was soon halted due to complaints from conservatives and environmentalists, and the company responsible for the project racked up huge debts and went bankrupt.

The idea of the city was to create hundreds of palaces and sell them, each with its own swimming pool, Jacuzzi and underfloor heating. The city itself was also supposed to have its own shopping center, restaurants, spas, Turkish baths and golf course. Each house could apparently be sold for up to £440,000 ($542,000).

At the moment, all the palaces of Burj Al Babas remain unfinished, and the city has no landscaping whatsoever - which means there aren't even any roads. As you can see in the photos, these palaces are not only empty, but also quite ugly. Even if they were completed, it seems that the town would look exceptionally strange and out of place in the surrounding landscapes of Bolu province.

Due to problems with project funding, preservation efforts, and the pandemic, it is highly unlikely that work on Burj Al Babas will ever resume. It is likely to remain a strange ghost town for years to come, and it is certainly not the only strange abandoned city in Europe.

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