Kazakhstan to use Borat phrase

MOSCOW/ALMATY: Ridiculed once again in a film featuring fictional Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev, Kazakhstan has embraced the joke this time round and adopted Borat’s catchphrase to try to attract tourists. was released on Amazon Prime last week.

Borat’s first outing caused anger in Kazakhstan, where authorities threatened legal action over what they saw as an insult to their national character.

This time round, its tourism board has taken a different approach and adopted Borat’s catchphrase, ‘‘Very nice!’’, to try to promote the vast Central Asian country.

In a slick video featuring spectacular mountains and lakes, an exotic food market and futuristiclooking cityscapes, foreign tourists use the catchphrase to signal their appreciation for what they are seeing.

The idea came from Dennis Keen, a US citizen living in Kazakhstan who is married to a Kazakh woman and has a business running walking tours.

‘‘[‘Very Nice’] is actually the perfect description of the country in the most sincere way. The people and the food are very nice.’’

Still, the foreign ministry remains unimpressed. It said the movie was racist and xenophobic, but an official protest was pointless because it would only generate more publicity and profits for its makers. — Reuters