June 22, 2009

EUROPE | TURKEY

Sultanic Luxury in Turkey

By Doug Black

At Mardan Palace, all that glitters is gold: 10,000 square feet of it.

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While its aspirations of entering the EU still lay in limbo-land, Turkey has already trumped its western neighbors in the hospitality department. After a star-saturated launch party attended by Mariah, Paris and Seal (along with plenty more celebrities who don’t require surnames), Mardan Palace has just opened in Antalya — to the tune of $1.4 billion.

Europe’s most expensive hotel has been bankrolled by just one man, the apparently recession-proof Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire Telman Ismailov (who’s also reported to have paid a million bucks for J Lo to sing him Happy Birthday). But Ismailov’s not alone among his compatriots for burning money on the Turkish Riviera, whose rampant large-scale constructions have turned this part of the Med into a European Dubai. The destination has already received over $2.5 billion in Russian hotel development, including an over-the-top Kremlin-themed resort by the beach. (Brace yourself for more post-Soviet excess: Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Prokhorov, has just been granted permission to build the country’s first “seven-star” hotel.)

So what does a billion-and-a-half get you at Mardan Palace? For starters, try 10,000 square feet of gold leaf, 500,000 crystals and 250,000 square feet of Italian marble. And while this sultanic-like temple of excess is modeled on Dolmabahçe Palace, 450 miles north in Istanbul, the sprawling, 560-room Mardan Palace borrows much from the lavish lords of other lands. Take the mammoth pool — the largest on the Mediterranean at 170,000 square feet — which is spanned by the Italianesque “Da Vinci Bridge” (built to the maestro’s exacting standards) and traversed by Venetian gondolas.

Of course, there’s enough Russian vodka and caviar to sate a Czar; a dedicated “American Bar” brings Cheers to Mediterranean; and a private beach boasts 9,000 tons of imported Egyptian sand that you didn’t know you wanted. And all this ignores 16 other bars, five aquariums, a 900-seat amphitheater, Europe’s only swimming reef (replete with toothless sharks), and 10 a la carte restaurants serving everything from French and Thai to traditional Turkish, each with a top chef hailing from the cuisine’s home country. Who needs the EU when you’ve got your very own culinary UN right at home?