The last time I mentioned Borat (the fictional character or the film itself) was back on the August 15th 2007, which is reasonably surprising for a blog that is often based in Kazakhstan itself. Anyway, why has he popped up now, such a long time after the movie was released? DavidG e-mailed me a link to an article explaining that Kazakhstan’s deputy Minister for Tourism and Sports (Kenzhebay Satzhanov) appears to have shown that this country finally has the right idea when it comes to publicity and spin. He rightly stated that the character and film, whilst portraying a fictional version of Kazakhstan in a bad light has helped people to know about this area of the world, and consequently increased tourism. I remember when I first met Irina, back before Borat even existed on the Ali G show, most people did not have a clue where Kazakhstan was, or anything about the country. Compare this approach from the government to when they banned a Borat website that used the .KZ domain, and threatened Sacha Baron Cohen with legal action – it looks as though the powers that be have caught on to communication (with the rest of the world at least) in the 21st century 🙂
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link to article removed, as page no longer existed