There is a place in Turkey that has achieved fame and notoriety thanks to a resounding real estate bankruptcy. The place is called Burj Al Babas, in the Bolu region located in the north of the country, and should have become a very exclusive city for VIPs from all over the world.

It is no coincidence that urban planning, on the principles of which there would be much to complain about even if it concerns matters within an autonomous state, had planned to raise hundreds of stately villas from nothing, one like the other, all built according to stylistic features. Gothic-like architectural.

An expanse as far as the eye can see of small Disney-style castles, one attached to the other, complete with towers and pointed roofs, a small garden dividing one property from another, and so on with other dream castles. A bet that the Sarot company thought it could easily win, given that it had already managed to place three hundred and fifty of those Disney residences, half of those planned for construction.

Many foreign investors had already paid the amount due, approximately three hundred thousand euros for each building: an almost favorable price, if you consider that each of them had to be equipped with gigantic colonnades, huge halls with marble floors, vaulted ceilings, decorations mosaics, picturesque fountains and even, on request, swimming pools in the garden.

Part of the subdivision, then, would have had to push up to the banks of a beautiful lake nearby, and some of those houses, obviously the most luxurious, should have had an entire wing built directly above the water. Fairytale dwellings, therefore, on which many wealthy people coming mainly from the Middle East had cast their eyes.

However, the funds weren’t enough and the dream of a Hollywood life in the middle of Turkey came to an abrupt end. The company went bankrupt and the construction of the new citadel was blocked. What made the blow particularly hard, especially for those who had already pulled the money out, was the failure to build the basic infrastructure: water, electricity, roads exist only on paper, but due to the financial crack of those who had proposed the deal have been made. And so even those who believed they could move into their little castle had to give up and, instead of hiring a butler, had to go in search of a good lawyer.

The company responsible for the bankruptcy has reassured everyone by guaranteeing that the bulldozers will return to work at Burj Al Babas soon, but few really believe it. The only ones to be satisfied are the increasing numbers of tourists who go up there and wander among the castles as if they were in the backstage of a film.

And actually, the glance is not bad, especially if captured from the surrounding hills. A huge monument to greed, but also to the carelessness with which it was believed to be able to guarantee a small paradise at a negligible cost.

And while waiting for the dream to become such again, the owners of the villas already purchased can be consoled by looking at the dazed gaze of those wandering among those buildings, probably wondering how it could have happened.