A March 2014 post from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s verified Twitter account read, “We’ve invested 6 quadrillion Turkish lira in Batman over the past 12 years.”

Awesome. In current exchange rates, the figure amounts to more than $2.3 quadrillion. What city could have seen such colossal investment in 12 years? Batman must be the wealthiest place in the world. But no, it is a small, underdeveloped city in Turkey’s southeast, known for rampant unemployment and poverty, along with an extraordinary suicide rate among women.

In another instance, main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, addressing a crowd in the northwestern city of Tekirdag on Feb. 15, slammed Erdogan’s new palace, a lavish complex built on a protected site despite court rulings barring its construction. “You’ve seen the 1 trillion electricity bill of the illegal palace. I’ll put an end to all this. I’ll put an end to all this siphoning and give the money to retirees and farmers,” he said. 

A 1 trillion lira electricity bill! This is about $385 million. And it’s only for one month. Istanbul’s total electricity bill must be smaller than that.