his is Burj al Babas, a ghost town of abandoned Disney castles in Turkey. A $200 Million dollar Village falling to pieces. It's a development project gone wrong.
Starting in the 2014, the ideas was to build 732 Renaissance Style Villas to appeal to rich investors in the Middle East. Originally 350 of the 587 kitsch villas were bought in the first phase. At 500,000 Dollars each (400,000 Euro), these investors were buying into a fantasy life, a Disney Land perfect paradise. Each home with a jacuzzi on each floor, an elevator, and a thermal spa. The complex housing 3 lakes, a shopping mall, mosque, pool, and golf course. The first tenants were expected summer 2020. It sounded too good to be true...
It was. Enter the Turkish real estate crisis. Enter the Cheesiness of it all. The company went bankrupt. The place fell to ruin.
And now we're here to explore. The very first group to get inside in years.
this is a ghost town of 500 abandoned Disney castles a
200 million dollar development project gone sour the company went bankrupt
Now the question has to be asked
What do you even do with a place like this?
Just a quick second before we get started
I think I've got something you might be interested in in honor of my brand new website. That's just launched
I'm going to share all of the locations. We've visited including this one on a giant online map on fearless and far
Now that's about a decade of discovery served hot and fresh into your inbox
And I guarantee there's gonna be some secrets in there that no one knows about but us so check it out. Okay
It's castle time. Let's go
Good morning behind me. I've got
Nellis and Morris
Two crazy Latvians. I met a few days ago and just on the other side of these hedges
by the mansions
We gotta be quiet though
These are incredible
so we know there is a
guard in the front
We don't think there's one in the back
So we have to be careful
These things are incredible though
Man, these are crazy, right?
I
Have a date this one's yours
400,000 euro
Okay, one of the big important parts of the
Castle itself was the terrace the tower. We just
Have to find the stairs we just did
Spiral staircases going up to the top. Oh my god. Look at this
It really is like a castle
Cold and crumbling
Just slap them together like this floors aren't even finished
Good
Wow, it's still very much a construction site, this is the second floor
So dangerous, right
How are they gonna sell these this is ridiculous they won't sell them they're not fit
I was supposed to be finished two years ago
None of them are finished. Look at this strong, man
Holy shit. Oh, man. This is what they build these houses
Yeah, yeah the Sun has just started to rise you can see it up on the mountain over there
We're still not sure what the security situations like here
So we still have to be a little bit quiet just can we get to the top yeah
I
Smoked my head on one of these
I just didn't see it the construction started in 2014
However, this fantasy paradise land didn't sell
Some blame the Turkish real estate crisis some blame the kitchiness of it all
It's also strange
It's also fake. There are rumors of construction actually continuing again in 2021
But who would buy one of these toy castles anyway got to say though
If there was one of them on a hilltop
It'd be beautiful a nice little castle, but the fact that there's 500
kind of makes it feel like
Kind of cheapens it doesn't it? I think the point of having a castle is being the only castle on the hill
There's 500 castles. You kind of lose the
Lose the flair lose the appeal guys
It's freezing cold. It's freezing, but it's a hell of a view
Yeah, Canadian to Latvians freezing their asses off
What a tower though
It feels a bit creepy doesn't it let's take a peek in some of these other ones, but
There's not that many that are finished
Look at the flooring
In my entire life of travel I have never seen
Anything like this one of the towers is top
So
As we're walking around it's very quiet here I
Think we're still okay. There's a shopping mall on the other side
That's massive. These houses are supposed to have their own private baths of like thermal water each one
And I'm supposed to be three cents three lakes a golf course and a shopping mall with a mosque
Luxury
Probably never happen
They are very castle like a lot of them do have some really beautiful trim on the outside
Unfortunately, it's all styrofoam
It's not trusty no, it's not I wouldn't trust it
All right. Here's the action planned for today
see if we can get into the shopping mall and
then
Last step is to fly the drone. We've
Snuck around back. There's some of these worksheds here. So if there was guards or dogs, they'd be there
But there's not even a door on it. So
It's freezing out. This definitely would be at least the door. So I think we're okay here
It's the shopping mall
Just the beginning. It's a massive building. Just well in the center of the entire
area
Let's see if we can get in
So right next to the mall
which
Appears pretty empty
There's a house that's almost finished at least the glasses on the windows. Oh my god. Look at this
So the Sun is starting to rise which means we got to get out of here very soon
The last house will be the one we check out because it's more finished than the rest
And originally they were all supposed to have elevators
And I'm assuming this is where that would go right here
We had heard that they had stopped that idea because it's too expensive
We're trying to cut some expenses, of course
Yeah, this thing is still pretty wrecked the windows are on but that's about it
Okay, the idea was to build
732
Okay, the idea was to build
732 Renaissance style chateaus all side by side each house with its own thermal spring bath
It's an elevator and its own private pool
Got to say though
This balcony. Oh, it'd be really nice to have a coffee on in the morning
It's a little bit too high-profile for what I like a lot of the place can see us
This is where we head next
Third time we hit our heads on these things
All right
Here we are
We made it in the shopping mall. Let's explore
our pool
Poor Sunday Sunday, maybe not in our lifetime
There we go, I feel safer already
Oh
Man all these old pieces
The odds and ends used to construct the castles. These are some of the towers
Arches over the windows over here for the facade
Not quite stone is it over here, too
I
Mills is squatting it. All right
So we've been talking about how it's hard to use cameras because our hands are freezing it's like minus 7 this morning and so
Morris has this great idea apparently
This is the feeling come back
It's supposed to bring all the blood back to your fingers the jury's out on whether it works or not science
Someday
Maybe this will be full of water
until that day comes
We're gonna get out of here
Well, we still can let's find a spot for the drone
Sometimes in this job, you've got to run
I
Luckily though we're pretty fast
It feels like we're seeing what's behind the mask the ugly skeleton of a place. That's too perfect to be true
Like I mentioned construction is planned to resume in 2021
But I think this place has had a lot of plans that didn't quite work out in the end
Including the fact the first guests were supposed to be moving in at the end of 2020
Which is exactly when I'm posting this video
What do you think should happen here?
What do you think will be the ultimate fate of this strange strange place?
Let me know what you think in the comments the best way to support this channel is to share it with a friend
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You definitely want it chase your fears dragons and I'll catch you in the next episode here on fearless and far