CHINA is home to a £500million dupe of one of Italy’s most popular tourist spots – but the “fake” city appears to be a far cry from the real deal.
The so-called Venice of China took four years to build and was hoped by planners to draw crowds and reduce pollution – but now appears to be part-abandoned and being left to rot.
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But recent footage of manmade canals, deserted streets, and half-finished buildings has painted a picture of a forgotten project.
One travel YouTuber, who goes by the name Chopsticks And Trains, said he was “shocked” when he visited the “ghost village”.
At first glance, the East Asia-based traveller said “Little Venice” looked “interesting” as it was not typical of China.
He said: “I do think it’s kind of cringe when they do things like this and go over the top to try to make it look European because, at the end of the day, you know it’s basically a fake and it’s hard to get too excited about a fake that’s worse than the real version.”
The water town was built in the port city of Dalian in China’s north-eastern Liaoning province and opened to the public in 2015, complete with four kilometres of a manmade canal.
European-style architecture on both sides of the canal emulates the style of architecture found in the real city of Venice.
The canal system was hoped to reduce traffic and the need for cars which were affecting air quality in Dalian, according to developers.
Reproducing the much-loved Italian city in China was estimated to have come at a cost of some 5billion RMB (£507 million).
During the warmer months of the year, paying customers are supposedly able to travel through the heart of the district by gondola – escorted by gondoliers wearing traditional Venetian clothing.
But the canal now appears nearly bone-dry.
Footage shared by YouTuber Chopsticks And Trains in February showed the canal parched in parts, and covered in sludge in others.
Eerie music played through speakers to an audience of very few as a number of security cameras surveyed the area.
The YouTuber said: “It’s really dead. It’s desolate.”
He added: “Everything is closed. There are a lot of buildings … You’ve got all these buildings everywhere, but it looks like nothing is really being used.”
There were many unfinished “mansions” in the town which had been left with half-tiled floors, wires and pipes hanging from the ceiling, and vines climbing up their exterior walls.
The YouTuber said: “This place, this whole area, was finished in 2015, so no telling how many years that’s been sitting there just like that.”
He added: “It’s pretty surreal, to be honest.”
Even the restaurants were “fake”, he said, appearing on the outside to be somewhere he might have been able to buy food, but on closer inspection being “deader than a doornail”.
He was surprised to find that the replica of Venice’s Saint Mark’s Belltower actually sounded on the hour.
The YouTuber said: “To me, just like the fake Paris over there on the outskirts of Hangzhou, this to me is reminiscent of the excesses of China.
“Because it was started in 2011 and that was still part of the golden era of modern China. That was when everybody thought that nothing could slow down the economic machine that was China.
“So you ended up with plans for things like this.”
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Dupe cities of the world
By Jessica Baker
ALTHOUGH China is likely the most prolific and deliberate in its replications of international cities, other countries have dupes within their borders.
One woman discovered a copy of Santorini some 2,600 miles away from the real Greek island – in the United Arab Emirates.
Instead of stunning views at the Aegean, influencer Aurélie Bouti gazed upon sand dunes and the Persian Gulf from a luxury resort in Ghantoot.
Aurélie said she was sceptical before she visited the fake Santorini near Abu Dhabi, but discovered upon arriving that she loved its relaxed vibe and the lack of crowds desperate to get the perfect sunset photo.
She told The Sun: “The advantage of Abu Dhabi is also that the temperature in winter is very nice.”
And as 12 million people flock to the culture- and history-rich city of Barcelona in Spain every year, others are choosing to go to a cheaper and less crowded dupe: Cádiz, Andalucia.
The charming and ancient port city offers travellers a chance to immerse themselves in authentic Spanish culture – with the mass tourism.
He continued: “To me, what I see when I look at this, is the manifestation of excess, or what they thought was excess.”
Venice is not the only Western city China has replicated within its borders, giving residents the option to see many wonders of the world without ever leaving the country – although most dupe cities are today not well attended, and some were not even finished.
Tianducheng, in the North East of Hangzhou, was developed to look like Paris and even features a replica of the Eiffel Tower.
But other than some ornate fountains and statues, the French-inspired streets – surrounded by farmlands – are usually bare.
China’s Overseas Chinese Town East resort was modelled on Interlaken, Switzerland and has a man-made lake.
And the town of Tianjin transports visitors to Florence, Italy, with fountains, canals, and mosaics similar to that seen in the original.
It also has a street of shops filled with high-end brands including Gucci and Prada.
Elsewhere in the town is a version of the Rockefeller Centre and Twin Towers famously in Manhattan, USA – but most parts of the replica borough were left abandoned and are now gathering dust.
The fake Manhattan is prone to flooding from heavy rain and storms.
Suzhou, a city west of Shanghai, houses a life-size copy of London’s Tower Bridge – except it lacks a mechanism that would allow boats to pass beneath it – which connects various other London-themed structures.
Other areas of China were inspired by cities such as Hallstatt in Austria, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Sigtuna in Sweden.
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