This must be how it happens, how a normal person ends up here at the Kremlin, in Turkey. All your life you've wanted to see Moscow, only you have a morbid fear of cold weather. Then, while trawling the internet, you chance on the other Kremlin: an almost life-size reproduction of the real thing.

The fake Kremlin has two big advantages over the real Kremlin. First, the fake is a hotel - so there's no need to worry about accommodation. Second, the fake is not in Moscow.

Instead it has been conveniently built in Antalya, on the Turkish Mediterranean coast, which happens to be one of the least cold places on Earth. And, given that the fake Kremlin has a beach, outdoor swimming pools and a water slide to keep the kids happy, who'd go to Russia?

Not Franz from Switzerland, or Dov from Israel, who, at 11am , were locked in mortal combat with a miniature surfboard in one of the Kremlin's interconnecting pools.

Chef Michael Caines in Istanbul

Great culture means great cuisine, says the award-winning chef who follows his nose to Istanbul

• Hip and happening Tel Aviv

What's new in Istanbul

As Istanbul transforms itself into Europe’s coolest city, Anthony Sattin checks out the latest hot spots

• Instant weekend: Istanbul

• Istanbul for teenagers

Related Internet Links

• More than 100 travel articles about Turkey

Related Links

• Green Spaces: Dalyan, Turkey

• Holiday in the Turkish hills

A Turkish compère in shorts egged on Franz and Dov over a microphone, so news of their progress boomed through the complex, bouncing off the walls of the Bolshoi (the resort's café) and the one-third actual size Duma (in which somebody had installed a disco).

The outdoor loudspeakers at the Kremlin play pop music all day long. I started thinking about the fortune to be made by the first travel company to exploit the niche in ear-splitting, five-star holidays. In high season most of the Kremlin's 2,000 beds are occupied. The only people who don't seem to like it here are Russians.

But Russians like Antalya. They like noise. They even like capitalism, provided that capitalism doesn't rub their noses in it by building novelty hotels imitating Red Square. And what Russians love most is what Antalya does best: Big Hotels.

At some point around the dawn of time, Antalya was a small fishing village. Since then, ignored by Rough Guides, derided by Lonely Planet, it has become a mushrooming colony of enormous five-star hotels, each of which has its own unique selling proposition.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists fly into Antalya to spend the night in the world's first revolving hotel or to swim in the world's longest indoor pool. This they could do more cheaply than in, say, the world's second revolving hotel (next to Niagara Falls) because Turkey is still one of those places that offers five-star service at three-star prices.

The service is better than in most places, too. If, because of the competition, a Big Hotel suddenly finds itself robbed of its USP, it doesn't panic, it ups the ante. The “seven-star” hotel concept was born in Antalya.

I did like the Marmara, the world's first revolving hotel. The bedroom managed to combine cosiness with inventive design. We took the lift down to the beach - not the sandy variety, rather a ledge cut ingeniously into the side of a cliff at sea level.

The view was breathtaking during those times when my hotel window was pointed at the shore, and not so great 180 degrees later when it gazed up at the high-rise flats on the other side. The dinner buffet was delicious even to a long-time buffet-snob such as me.

Times recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• The UK and Ireland's 25 best Christmas events
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winners