Gbadolite is a city in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the ancestral home of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the country—then called Zaire—from 1965 to 1997. Mobutu transformed the remote settlement into his personal capital, complete with three palaces, a five-star hotel, hospital, Coca-Cola plant and a 3,200-metre runway built to receive chartered Concordes from Europe. Foreign leaders were entertained among marble, fountains and Chinese pagodas in what became known as the “Versailles of the Jungle.” When Mobutu fell in 1997, the palaces were looted and abandoned. Vegetation entered the ballrooms and the airport nearly emptied.
Gbadolite
