Kazakhstan has buckled under the cultural reign of Borat Sagdiyev and adopted his cult catchphrase — “Very nice!” — for their latest tourism campaign.
When Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was first unleashed on the world back in 2006, it didn’t sit well with the Kazakh government.
The government took umbrage with the misrepresentation of their country. Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of Kazahkstan as a place where homophobia, antisemitism, racism and sexism were rife, where women were kept in cages and the national drink was fermented horse piss naturally caused upset within the Kazakh embassy.
In response to the film, Kazakstan banned the film positioned four-page ads in The New York Times and U.S. News and World Report rallying against it.
They’ve since had a change of tune. Kairat Sadvakassov, deputy chairman of Kazakh Tourism, explained that adopting Borat’s perennial catchphrase “offers the perfect description of Kazakhstan’s vast tourism potential in a short, memorable way.”
“Kazakhstan’s nature is very nice; its food is very nice; and its people, despite Borat’s jokes to the contrary, are some of the nicest in the world,” Sadvakassov told Huffington Post. “We would like everyone to come experience Kazakhstan for themselves by visiting our country in 2021 and beyond, so that they can see that Borat’s homeland is nicer than they may have heard.”
Upon learning that Kazahkstan intended to use Borat’s catchprase for a tourism campaign, Sacha Baron Cohen told The New York Times, “This is a comedy, and the Kazakhstan in the film has nothing to do with the real country.
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“I chose Kazakhstan because it was a place that almost nobody in the U.S. knew anything about, which allowed us to create a wild, comedic, fake world. The real Kazakhstan is a beautiful country with a modern, proud society — the opposite of Borat’s version.”
