KAZAKHSTAN HAS ADOPTED Borat’s “very nice!” catchphrase in a bid to boost tourism during Covid-19. 

Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, was released last week and is a sequel to 2006′s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

The first Borat film caused controversy in Kazakhstan for its depictions of the nation as misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic. 

Despite these depictions, Kairat Sadvakassov, Deputy Chairman of Kazakh Tourism, said in a statement to the Huffington Post that adopting Borat’s catchphrase in the campaign “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. 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,” he said.

The ads show tourists hiking with a selfie stick, (“Very nice!”), drinking fermented horse milk (“Mm, that’s actually very nice!”), looking at the architecture on Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan (“Wow, very nice!”) and posing for a photograph with Kazakhs in traditional dress (“That’s very nice!”).

Bordered by Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and China, and the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world by land mass.

After its release in 2006, the Kazakh government placed ads in US newspapers disputing some of the first film’s claims and presenting the country as modern, stable and outward-looking, according to the Guardian.

“The advertisements were timed with a visit from President Nursultan Nazabayev and featured a photograph of Nazabayev shaking hands with US president George W Bush,” the newspaper reports. 

“Later that year Nazabayev laughed when asked about the film while on a visit to the UK. “The very fact that you have put that question – you will want to learn more and come to Kazakhstan to see for yourself,” he said.

Baron Cohen’s sequel has already made headlines in recent weeks. 

One scene shows former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on a bed, tucking in his shirt with his hand down his trousers after the woman helps him remove recording equipment.

Giuliani called the scene “a hit job”, and said he realised he was being set up.