08/31/2021 7:14 AM
Clarín.com
Travels
Updated 08/31/2021 7:14 AM
With its colossal dinosaur statues and 17 roller coasters, "
Wonderland Eurasia
" in
Ankara
, Turkey, had to become the
largest amusement park in the region
and a "source of pride," according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Instead, the expensive carousels, which have been rusting since the closure of the facilities a year after its inauguration in March 2019, have become the symbol of waste and excess of some officials of the presidential party, the AKP .
The outrage aroused by the construction of this immense
project, as useless as it is onerous
, contributed to ending the long reign of the Islamoconservatives in Ankara, where the opposition won in the last municipal elections in 2019.
Abandoned games at the "Wonderland Eurasia" theme park near the Turkish capital, Ankara, Photo: Adem Altan / AFP
Dimensions of a colossus
Beyond the figures, the complexity and thematic breadth of the amusement park impressed: visitors entered through a main entrance that was made
in the image and likeness of the old mosques and madrassas
.
Also while entering, an
Ankara cat orchestra
performed Mozart's Turkish March.
In the park you could take canal boats to see replicas of famous Turkish sites.
Photo Wonderland Eurasia
The park was so large that so that tourists could move through the interior there was
a five-kilometer train
, which not only ran through the entire park but also gave access to nearby canals, where
boat trips
could be made
contemplating replicas of emblematic places. from Turkey.
Among the
14 roller coasters
scattered around the place, an Intamin that made no less than ten reversals (head turns) stood out, although this was only for the most intrepid.
More popular was
Small World Turkey
, a version of the well-known It's a Small World, which invited people to visit Turkey accompanied by funny and singing dolls.
A nice 5 km long train ran through the park.
Photo Wonderland Eurasia
Also
Dinosaur Jungle
was a very popular sector, which in its 20,000 square meters housed an
animatronic dinosaur 70 meters
long that was expected to
present to the Guinness World
Records as the largest of its kind.
Other sections proposed a
foray into the Stone Age or the Roman Empire
, to jump from there to a futuristic-themed sector and for robot lovers.
There were also areas dedicated to the little ones.
The park authorities announced with great fanfare that there
would be animation shows and concerts every weekend
.
But the illusion did not last long.
Today, Wonderland Eurasia is a pile of rusting iron and decaying mega-structures in the open, with no one to enjoy them.
14 roller coasters operated in the park.
Photo Wonderland Eurasia.
An "extravagant" project
Problems around Wonderland Eurasia arose quickly: just two days after its opening,
a train got stuck
on top of a roller coaster, and passengers had to get off on foot.
Successive inconveniences and high costs caused Wonderland Eurasia to
close its doors
in 2020
, leaving a strong feeling of bitterness.
"Wonderland Eurasia" opened as the largest amusement park in Europe, but closed soon.
Photo: Adem Altan / AFP
"What Ankara needed is not an amusement park. It was (an improvement) of transport", laments Tezca Karakus Candan, president of the Chamber of Architects of the Turkish capital.
And he adds that "it was an extravagant project", recalling that
there was already another
similar
park
in the city.
The municipality brought to justice the company responsible for Wonderland Eurasia with the idea of getting its control and taking advantage of the extensive land where it is located.
The judicial decision is expected to be known on September 13.
According to the current opposition mayor, Mansur Yavas, this project inherited from his predecessor, Melih Gökçek, the park cost more than
680 million euros
(about 800 million dollars).
Depending on whose statement it is, the site cost between $ 500 million and $ 800 million.
Photo: Adem Altan / AFP
Gökçek, who ran Ankara from 1994 to 2017, rejects that figure, noting that the cost was actually
420 million
euros (almost $ 500 million).
The idea was that Wonderland Eurasia would
help develop tourism
in Ankara, an essentially administrative city much less frequented by tourists than Istanbul or the seaside resorts in the south of the country.
Gökçek claimed that the park would attract
10 million annual visitors
to Ankara.
But they were barely half in 2019.
For Güven Arif Sargin, professor of architecture at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, wanting to turn the capital into a tourist center was a "
childish quirk
."
Wonderland Eurasia was supposed to help develop tourism in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Photo: Adem Altan / AFP
For Erdogan's detractors, this project has become a
symbol of the gulf
that exists between the ruling class and the concerns of the population.
"Melih Gökçek reflects the way in which the local AKP administrations betray the cities, in which they act to implement a process of looting," Candan estimates.
But for many Ankara residents, Gökçek's main mistake was not to carry out an expensive installation, but to have
destroyed a natural space linked to the founder of the Republic
, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Detractors of the president say that his intention was to destroy a space linked to the founder of the Republic, Atatürk.
Photo: Adem ALTAN / AFP
At the "Atatürk Forest Farm", started in 1925,
there was a zoo and orchards
.
The founder of the Republic created the space to respond to the future agricultural needs of the capital.
For opponents of the project, the construction of an amusement park in this symbolic location is part of the
government's campaign to erase Atatürk's legacy
.
SOURCE: Raziye AKKOC / AFP
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