About-face by Kazakhstan over ‘Borat’

If you can’t beat Borat, join him.

After condemning Sacha Baron Cohen’s first “Borat” movie for portraying the former Soviet republic as backward and bigoted in 2006, Kazakhstan has now embraced the character’s famous catchphrase as a tourism slogan.

The Kazakh tourism board released a series of promotional spots Sunday showing travelers exploring the central Asian country’s mountains, cities and green markets while exclaiming, “Very nice!”

It’s an incredible reversal, considering the first Borat movie – “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” – claimed citizens drank horse urine, whipped women and staged an anti-Semitic variation on Spain’s running of the bulls.

The government denounced the mockumentary in 2006 and threatened to sue Cohen.

So what’s changed now that the sequel – “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (photo) – was released last week?

“It’s a newer generation,” Yermek Utemissov, who helped pitch and film the spots, told The New York Times.

“In COVID times, when tourism spending is on hold, it was good to see the country mentioned i n the media,” Kairat Sadvakassov, the deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s tourism board, told the Times.

“Not in the nicest way, but it’s good to be out there. We would love to work with Cohen, or maybe even have him film here,” he said.

Cohen responded to the turnaround in an email statement sent to the Times.

“This is a comedy, and the Kazakhstan in the film has nothing to do with the real country,” he wrote.