Since 2012, an ongoing housing boom has turned Bishkek into an El Dorado of so-called ‘elite housing’ or elitki. Against this background, this article seeks to explore elite housing not only as the manifestation of ‘newbuild gentrification’ in the rapidly changing urban landscape of Bishkek but also as a phantasmagorical object of desire and fear that haunts the collective imaginaries of its residents. The article seeks to reveal the paradoxical nature of elite housing being simultaneously the carrier of collective fantasies and a material remainder of their ultimate impossibility.