Kangbashi - China # 39; ghost town for the rich - China on four wheels - BBC
While some developers still work on their construction projects thankless, others are busy slashing prices typical housing prices rose 1 Kangbashi 100-470 per square foot, over the last five years.
Today, the Kangbashi district, planned to accommodate a population of over one million, is home to 20,000 desolate people leaving 98 of the 355 square km site, either under construction or abandoned altogether.
A November 2009 report on AlJazeera exposed the city of Ordos to a global audience, and the story was executed the following year by Time Magazine Soon, Ordos had received the title of the ghost town of China.
Journalists and photographers representing a number of world famous publications have since been to capture Kangbashi empty streets, its row upon row of abandoned apartments halfway building blocks.
While the population of Ordos is now just 10 Mongolia 90 Chinese, yet the airport was resplendent with icons proud of Mongolian heritage; effigies of horses and minstrels look down through the central hall, while the departure hall has a large wall painting, a ring of painted scenes of Genghis Khan's life.
For all this opulence, however, the airport was almost empty.
We took the second of two daily flights to Beijing Eerduosi; from the smallest, the former military airfield on the outskirts of the capital He came to Inner Mongolia at night, and we jumped at the transfer coach headed downtown Ordos.
We were on this luxury car for about half an hour, enthroned in reclining seats soft full cup holders, leg rest and a movie channel all the time, convict half-light of concrete and metal spun our windows , distant shapes, shadows appearing and disappearing in the gloom.
I felt hounded on all sides by invisible construction sites was difficult to make out much of our environment, given the bright interior lighting on the coach on the last stretch in Ordos however, we passed the shell of a stage to be; large areas of skeletal seats rose in a ring around a central playground, lit by industrial projectors and regular rockets, revealing hundreds of welding guns.
Never in my life have I seen anything so closely similar to the second Death Star.
We arrived in Ordos some time in the early hours of the morning, left our bags in a hotel, and grabbed a beer for the road The city center is not far completion, there are shops and apartments, cafes, bars and restaurants for all this apparent normality, however, the city of Ordos is chaired by a series of towers hit doom, gray office buildings, apartments and shopping centers, and most of them are completely empty .
We walked for hours, past restaurants, bars, casinos and sex shops lights shone bright in all institutions, but people were nowhere to be seen cutting through a Backstreet we spent the lights roses a brothel the front was lined with wide glass windows to expose a group of young girls stood as if on parade in a lingerie wardrobe for these dozen or so prostitutes-numbered more than pedestrian we managed to count all evening.
Everywhere, there seems to be preparing a show; institutions with their doors wide open, not only to welcome guests, but also, perhaps, to prove a point to show this city to the functional destination, welcoming he so desperately wants to be.
We tried to find something to eat in a restaurant Backstreet, approaching the door where local children were fighting with a water hose.
Enter, enter, they said, motioning to a dimly lit booth inside the refrigerator next filled with cold noodles and soft drinks There was no sign of an adult on the premises, no view nor the smell of a leader at work as with so much else in Ordos, the lights were on but nobody was home.
By the time we got back to the hotel, luxurious oversized beds and bars in the room that featured whiskey, peanuts and gas masks, we still struggling to become familiar with this place, to give a sense of the city.
Through and through it felt like a construction site of a tense canteen manufacturers to accommodate a city for the men working there were primal comfort aplenty bars, snacks and brothels, but while as restaurants and casinos have a show ready for tourists, delegates, or better yet, investors, most of them are nothing more than empty fronts and displays meaningless.
In the light of the next morning, we had our first impression of the extent of abandonment We stopped for breakfast Fast Food, curl the restaurant in the shadow of the CBD of the city instead of buildings industrious offices however, a series of hollow finger is lifted to the sky; the shells of alleged towers, one after the other, line after line, disappearing in the distance.
Immediately above us Dominated what could have been the headquarters of a bank of forty-story office, wrapped in a shell mirror panels in his state not maintained, however, these reflective scales fell away in swathes, for expose bare concrete under even finished yet, and already it needed a makeover.
We found a mosque near the city center, a modern, cubist formed clean white blocks, looking closer, it seemed that the temple had never been used; peering through the glass doors, we saw nothing inside but open space, while the doors themselves were still wrapped in plastic - as if fresh out of a warehouse somewhere and assembly hastily.
Before turning to our main destination, we decided to better see the problem, the most, the most densely populated center of Ordos.
We found a friendly taxi driver, who was more than happy to take us past some of the city's main sights He led us down a long boulevard lined with lamps adorned with figurines designed in art deco 1930s style; past a park overgrown with vegetation and rows of concrete shells Finally we came to a halt in front of a large statue of a horse in the middle of a roundabout.
Ordos, registration of the statue proclaimed, to nobody in particular, tourism outstanding City of China.
His confidence had to be paraphrased by almost every local we talked about this trip; blind assurance that these beautiful buildings remain empty could never It was inconceivable that all that hard work would have been for nothing.
We drove back along the highway at Ordos old Kangbashi before continuing northeast to Dongsheng airport On the way we passed the new stadium, less dramatic by daylight, everything beyond a forest of dusty towers, unfinished fan on each side of the road cranes stood sentry on some of these construction sites, many of them weighs as much as forty, fifty floors au over the desert, however, was smooth and well maintained road itself; his shoulders and central reservation decorated with shrubs well watered, and artistic horse motifs.
The taxi dropped us off at the upper end of the square Gengis Khan, where we looked through the desolation of Kangbashi around us raised our figures khans and their royal advisers, men, women and horses dressed finest traditional attires of Mongolia.
About 600 feet south, the heart of a vast open courtyard reared two colossal horses, perhaps the most emblematic monuments of Kangbashi Beyond the horses, the vast central square inserted in a park, the dusty sand up grass and with paths which vented to form the shape of a sunbeam.
residential towers and companies increased in all directions satisfyingly symmetrical alignment blocks and skyscrapers before, we Hemming, of the most remarkable works of architecture Kangbashi lined paths of Genghis Khan up along the left, before the two rearing horses sitting Kangbashi the theater a curious building, its shape inspired supposedly by a traditional form of Mongol headgear.
To our right, the library building looked like a pile of books leaning very near the Ordos Museum sits as well, it is difficult to say exactly Mad Architects now bears its name behind the project, suggested that the design reflects the crossroads faced by the surrounding community seeking to interpret their local traditions in the newly built urban context.
Place around us was not completely empty A man looked close to his son flew a kite; sailing brilliant drifting over the heads of noble Khans There was very little traffic, but the car or casual bike would cruise past us now and again, none of them seeming to be pressed particular.
There was a constant trickle of people moving in and out of Ordos Museum, and we spied a little more stood around the hooves of horses; although we approached, we notice of them were dressed in the uniforms of dreary sweepers During the day, we find that for maintenance teams to Kangbashi outnumbered pedestrians ten times.
Amble around the roads that border the city center, we had small speakers mounted on the rods, which blasted the Mongolian People Music particular person Further on the square before the horses and theater signs announced a printed coffee and we decided to take a look inside we took the elevator to the top floor, where the doors opened to reveal a gaggle of giggles, the girls of school age was in line to greet us he looked much the same as the brothel of us spent the night before, except this time the girls were fully dressed.
Welcome to the World Ghost largest city in China Ordos, welcome, world, ghost town.
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