Inside Turkey tyrant's £500million gold palace and his shopaholic wife

Days after a failed coup in Turkey ,DailyMail has written an article on the president and his wife's extravagant lives.Below

 She claims to live a 'humble and modest' life with strict Muslim values, whiling away the hours in palace kitchen fermenting apples and turning them into vinegar.

But while her tyrant husband President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has amassed a £139million fortune with at least three palaces across Turkey, his 'shopaholic' wife Emine likes nothing more than spending money.

Emine Erdogan's jet-set lifestyle is a whirlwind of one shopping trip after another where her particular passions are designer clothes and expensive antiques.


As a quarter of her country live in extreme poverty and almost two million live on just £3 a day, the president's wife boasts she drinks specialist white tea at £1,500 a kilo… and drinks it from gold leaf glasses worth £250 each.

She once closed down a shopping mall in Brussels to go on a designer shopping spree and while accompanying her husband on an official visit to Warsaw in Poland blew through more than £37,000 while browsing an antiques bazaar.

Covering an area of 1.6sq miles the mega palace has cost more than £500m to build with no expense spared on its fixture and fittings.

From silk wallpaper costing as much as £2,000 a roll to £36,000 for each pair of double doors that are needed for the hundreds of rooms.

One estimate has the bill for more than 400 extra large double doors that measure 3.2m high by 2m wide at over £5m.

Add in the 450 single doors needed and the final bill for doors has been put at over £26m.

In keeping with the no expense spared build even carpeting for the 366,000 sq ft palace is more than £7m.

Critics of the monstrous building have said it is so extravagant that it would have made Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, known for his love of gold and jewel encrusted fittings, blush.

Others have derided the architecture of the palace saying it looks like more like a Chinese railway station than anything from the former Ottoman empire.

The building, known as the White Palace, cost more than twice the original estimate but Erdogan has dismissed criticism by saying it boosts Turkey's profile in the world.

Erdogan sees the Palace as reward for leading the country to prosperity - but others say it shows his increasing authoritarianism.

During the failed coup F-16 jets bombed the Palace, but the extent of any damage is not yet known.

As well as being the home for Erdogan, the Palace is also a command and control centre.

Like the White House in the US it includes a situation room and bunkers able to withstand a biological, chemical and nuclear attack.

Erdogan's extravagance appears to extend to his wife Emine who while running the Presidential Palace profeses to lead a frugal life.

Emine, a mother of four, is known for her love of designer handbags and clothes.

During a visit last October to Brussels she had her bodyguards seal off the entrance to a shopping mall while she visited the Longchamps store where she spent 1500 Euros.

Other shoppers were prevented from entering the mall in Louise Avenue while she walked round the store, which sells expensive handbags and luggage.

While the population have got used to Erdogan's extravagance with his palace, the source of his wealth remains something of a mystery.

According to Forbes magazine the 62 year old topped the list of the highest paid political figures with his earnings put at £43.2m.

His personal fortune is said to be over £139m built up over the years from stock investment and a substantial property portfolio.

He also owns several restaurants and the Istanbul Angels football team in Ankara as well as his own brand of vodka.

With Erdogan now strengthening his grip on the country after the botched coup conditions for those on the poverty line are unlikely to improve.