A PHOTOGRAPHER has shared haunting pictures of an abandoned five-star resort – built as a gift for a German tycoon’s girlfriend.
In the early 2000s the hotel, known as the Holiday Area Eco Dream Club Sea Resort, was one of the most popular resorts for tourists in Turkey.
Jam PressThe impressive property is 140,000 square feet[/caption]
Jam PressIn its prime 1000 people were needed to work on the resort every day[/caption]
Jam PressIt was abandoned in 2014 and has since fallen into disarray[/caption]
The five star resort unexpectedly shut its doors in 2014 and has fallen into disarray since.
Yet because of its unique history, having been built as a sign of love, it has continued to attract thousands of visitors each year.
Dmitry Rzhannikov, 56, a photographer and journalist from St Petersburg, Russia, came across the unusual hotel whilst he was in Turkey.
Dmitry said: “A German billionaire fell in love with a Turkish beauty and built the hotel for her as a gift,
“Construction cost over $5 billion (£3.66 billion) but then the beauty either died or fell out of love with him and the hotel went to a Turkish businessman.
“He scored loans for the development, didn’t pay them off and fled abroad or perhaps died.
“The quarrelling heirs couldn’t share the property and during this time, the economy fell into despair.”
Dmitry thinks that the hotel was then forced to file for bankrupty, and left the resort to decay.
According to some reports, 1000 people had been needed on a daily basis to work on the resort.
The impressive property is 140,000 square metres, and even has its own bridge – which runs across the Tourism Boulevard for 100 metres and ends on the neighbouring beach.
As Dmitry explored the location, once booming with guests, he made sure to photograph the quirky exterior – adorned with giant frogs and a Noah’s Ark replica.
The resort also features a fraying treehouse, although it is now mostly masked by overgrowing trees.
Because the resort is situated just above the sea, up the slope of a mountain, overgrown with impressively large pine trees, the hotel was considered an “eco” resort.
The hotel has also ensured to use nature as a theme throughout.
To this day, it still contains human-sized bugs which have been spread around the perimeter of the resort, three rusty life-sized monkeys, and a sign which reads “speak no evil, see no evil and hear no evil.”
Dmitry said: “I noticed some strange figures flashing between the trees in the window, but these were the sculptures of animals on the premises,
“I was excited, as it looked really fantastic – like a scene from a movie.
“Seeing the beauty in all this ugliness and devastation is not immediately obtained.
“You can go into the hotel rooms abandoned by their inhabitants and look into the romantic tree houses.
“You can go up the stairs to the amphitheatre, among the chairs in which admiring spectators one sat and float between the imaginary tables of the former cafes and restaurants.”
The resort is filled with numerous attractions – so many, in fact, that most people who visit take multiple trips.
One feature, that appears to be a piece of literature inscribed on a marble plaque, has since been smashed and is no longer legible, but still has an eerie beauty to it.
Other attractions include toy trains, a farm, a mini-zoo, and now-defunct cable cars.
Dmitry said: “The children’s sector of the complex is especially striking, as guests were either greeted by a lion peeking out from behind a column, or giant gorillas lurking in ambush.
“Instead of a fence, a giant caterpillar winds and ‘fruits’ grow on artificial trees – in which, some are indistinguishable from others.
“Its psychedelic architecture is amazing to the imagination.
“Eco Dream is a Disneyland for the crazy.”
Meanwhile, an abandoned luxury seaside hotel in Brazil has gone on sale for £8 million.
The hotel boasts hundreds of rooms, tennis courts, bars and a nightclub – but after one and a half decades of neglect it has fallen into disrepair.
And, a beautiful French hotel that had been abandoned has now been put up for sale for just £278,000.
Near Cévennes National Park and the holiday hotspot coastal city of Montpellier, the hôtel particulier is ideally located.
It boasts four old-fashioned, but stunning suits with en-suite bathrooms across four floors.
The place is full of high decorated ceilings, terracotta tiled floors, and a gorgeous wooden staircase that winds up the building.
Jam PressThe hotel’s eerie beauty still attracts thousands of visitors a year[/caption]
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