Kazakhstan Adopts Borat's Catchphrase As New Tourism Slogan

What a difference 14 years makes for Borat and his home country of Kazakhstan .

Back in 2006, Kazakhstan leaders werent happy that the central Asian country was portrayed in Sacha Baron Cohens hit comedy as an anti-Semitic, misogynist country, as Newsweek noted at the time .

Even more embarrassing: Kazakh government spokesperson Roman Vassilenko was forced to officially deny that Kazakhstanis drank fermented horse urine.

Things began to change after officials noticed that the films unflattering portrayal of Kazakhstan actually increased tourism .

Now, the countrys tourism department is capitalizing on the new Borat sequel by using one of the characters catchphrases for a tourism campaign: Very nice.

The new campaign rolled out Sunday in the form of four 12-second spots that feature tourists visiting the sites of Kazakhstan and uttering the phrase.

Thankfully, no one actually imitates the Borat character. Who could, after all?

Kairat Sadvakassov, deputy chairman of Kazakh Tourism, said in a statement that the beauty of Borats catchphrase is that it offers the perfect description of Kazakhstans vast tourism potential in a short, memorable way.

He continued:

Kazakhstans nature is very nice; its food is very nice; and its people, despite Borats jokes to the contrary, are some of the nicest in the world. We would like everyone to come experience Kazakhstan for themselves by visiting our country in 2021 and beyond, so that they can see that Borats homeland is nicer than they may have heard.

You can see the video below.

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