ONCE hailed as Europe’s biggest theme park, Turkey’s Ankapark today is an eerie abandoned land filled with decaying dinosaurs, scattered debris, and a dozen lifeless rollercoasters.
Officially opened as Wonderland Eurasia in 2019, the 1.3-million-square-metre site has gone to ruins after the park closed within a year of its inauguration.
Back in the day, President Tayyip Erdoğan praised the venue as “one of the symbols of pride for Turkey.”
It was fair enough for him to say that — the theme park boasted 26 large rides, 2,117 smaller ones housed in 13 huge tents and a large outdoor area.
An impressive fountain that could sprinkle water up to 120m high was built in the outside area, and a parking area was built to accommodate almost a thousand cars.
The multi-million dollar project was built to attract five million visitors per year.
Instead, all it could attract was a dark fate for itself that was filled with dust, rot, and a bunch of lawsuits.
The problems for the mega theme park started early on — a rollercoaster broke down two days after the inauguration, public restrooms were in shambles, and many rides stood unfinished.
Despite spending a whopping $801 million on building what was supposed to be Turkey’s version of Disneyland, most of the areas inside the park remained off-limits due to unfinished business.
Just a year down the line, the park closed after the operator struggled to pay wages and electricity bills.
Today, the park stands eerily quiet — with broken toys and ride parts scattered everywhere.
The only visitors are burglars who constantly try to milk out cables and other recyclable parts.
But not every fault can be attributed to the park’s operators.
Since plans for the amusement park were announced by the then-mayor Melih Gokcek in 2013, his scheme quickly found itself encircled by legal issues and political scandals.
The incoming mayor, Mansur Yavas, was swift to blame Gokchek for alleged corruption amid the fall of Turkey’s version of Disneyland.
He filed several criminal complaints against Gokcek for negligence and abuse of office.
Meral Aksener, shadow leader and close associate of Yavas, said: “Ankapark is the concrete version of all the corruption and waste that has been carried out in Turkey to date.”
But the inside political rivalry cannot help bring back the majestic theme park which once was set to become a symbol of pride for the country.
