Turkish President drops $350M on a new palace

The home is 40 times the size of the White House

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ak Saray
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ak Saray

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unveiled his lavish new digs – a presidential palace on the outskirts of Ankara that cost a cool $350 million.

Known as “Ak Saray” (“White Palace”), the 2,150,000-square-foot, 1,000-room building has already begun to draw protest from critics of the leader’s autocratic ways.

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Erdogan is moving out of a more modest two-story palace built by the first Turkish president in the 1920s, according to Curbed.

“We paid attention to Ottoman themes in the interior, also adding elements reflecting the modern world,” Erdogan has said of the building. [Curbed]Christopher Cameron