Why is there an abandoned town in Turkey?

It's a fairy tale ghost town, an ambitious, luxurious development project that fell victim to mismanagement and global financial currents. Burj Al Babas, as the place is known, is located a few miles from the historic town of Mudurnu, once at the crossroads of the Silk Road and the Crimean Road.



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The Burj Al Babas is an abandoned ghost town in Turkey filled with Disney-like castles. Construction of the luxury community began in 2014. When Turkey's economy fell, the project halted. Today, 587 castles remain empty, and tourists often visit to see the eerie ghost town in real life.

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Only there's no people in sight – and not even any roads. The place is called Burj Al Babas and it's a ghost town consisting of half-completed mini-castles that were apparently inspired by French châteaux. There are currently nearly 600 of the palaces, though there were supposed to be more than 700.

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Thanks to project funding issues, conservation efforts and the pandemic, it looks extremely unlikely that work on Burj Al Babas will ever resume. It's likely to remain an odd ghost town for the foreseeable – and it's certainly not the only strange abandoned town in Europe.

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I volunteer for few weeks in the south of Turkey precisely in the north of Antalya in a guest house surrounded by white and grey rocky mountains. Every guest (tourist) that comes, it's the same theme: Isparta is a secret paradisaical spot in all Turkey, if not in the world!

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The hardy souls that remained, promoted Jerome as a historic ghost town and in 1967 Jerome was designated a National Historic District by the federal government. Today the mines are silent and Jerome has become the largest ghost town in America.

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A study conducted by a company named Geotab has compiled a list of over 3,800 ghost towns across America. According to the company, Texas has the most ghost towns of any state, with over 500.

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Burj Al Babas is a housing development project owned by Istanbul construction entrepreneurs The Yerdelen brothers. The project involved the construction of 732 three-story luxury villas, all very similar to each other and characterised by elements of Gothic, English and American architecture.

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The town of Burj al Babas is a major example of an investment gamble that badly fell apart, after a $200 million luxury development was left abandoned and bankrupt. The plan was proposed by the Yerdelen brothers, aiming to create a luxury town for wealthy foreigners to buy up property.

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