‘Borat’ Spikes Kazakh Tourism

Very nice, indeed! British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen had the thanks of a grateful Kazakhstan on Monday when government minister Erzhan Kazykhanov credited his 2006 film featuring the bumbling journalist Borat with growing the country’s tourism trade 10-fold. “I am grateful to Borat, the main character of the movie, for tourists’ keen interest in Kazakhstan,” Kazykhanov said. The mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, was not happily received in the central Asian country when it premiered, but now the minister, who offered his comments while standing in the country’s Parliament, called the response to the film “a great victory.”