KZBlog

There is an interesting post up on the Russian NewEurasian Kazakhstan blog about how government workers stretch those meager salaries. For those who don’t ready Russian, basically, a German company was celebrating with a big lunch in a hotel. An entourage was waiting for them at the bar, including both police and civilians. After they paid up, some government officials came out of a backroom and one of the entourage that had been waiting spoke to the restaurant manager and sped out of the bar with the government officials.

A waiter come over to the Germans and say, “Sorry, you need to pay for your friends at the bar.”

Of course, the Germans didn’t know these people but by the time someone got to the street to call the free riders back, they were all speeding away in government cars.

As the author noted, it’s a little hard to see how this will encourage foreign investment in Kazakhstan or spread the word that Kazakhs are so hospitable. Borat himself couldn’t have thought of anything worse.