In India, they are selling camel’s milk ice cream.

The Food and Agriculture Organization says camel milk has a vitamin C content three times higher than cow’s milk. It is also rich in iron, unsaturated fatty acids and vitamin B.

“It is also shown to reduce blood sugar levels in diabetes patients,” Kohler-Rollefson said. “At a later stage, we plan to market it for diabetes patients in the cities.”

So Kazakhstan, you’re looking for internationally competitive products. Start remarketing shubat, fermented camel’s milk. I want shubat ice cream by New Years or I’m moving to India!

To correct an imbalance, because people keep hitting this site asking for the words to the real national anthem, and I have a link to Borat’s national anthem, here are the words to the National Anthem of Kazakhstan in Kazakh and English, and the sheet music.

MP3 here.

My post on it and how the new anthem came about is here.

And that should make the searchers happy.

One of the side stories to the Tengiz riots, was the prescence of 625 Filipino workers at the site. During the riots themselves, they apparently all assembled and got out of the way and no one got hurt. Negotiations have been going back and forth between Kazakhstan and the Philipines about their welfare and a plan was in place to protect them. It didn’t appear that they were implicated or threatened in any way. Again, it seemed like a side story to the riots themselves, the stories of low wages, unfair treatment, violence, rape, racism and nationalism between Kazakhs and Turks.

But now, 11 Filipinos have returned from Tengiz and are saying that robbery and violence were common against Filipinos. When Kazakh and Turkish comments in forums and blogs claim rape and murder in the midst of nationalist sloganeering and insults to the other race, one has to keep a level of disbelief. But the Filipinos have nothing to gain from lying. The article doesn’t say whether it was Kazakhs or Turks (or both) who perpetuated these crimes, and it doesn’t really matter except from the PR point of view. This is beyond bad PR; this is a serious matter of workers rights and effective methods of enforcing the law. The PM has been very active in dealing with this situation, and one hopes there will be results.

Jantik, a DJ in Almaty, showed up at the London premire of Borat’s film in London, dressed in traditional Kazakh robes and claimed to be Borat’s brother. Apparently he came late, without a ticket, and was refused admission. Most British papers are picking up on this aspect of it, which will sadly give people more reason to laugh at Kazakhs, though they should realize that disregard for formal measures of time is an important part of Kazakh culture!

The BBC coverage of the opening is here and has this to say about Jantik:

Real-life Kazakh TV star Jantemir Baimukhamedov - also known at Jantik - arrived at the premiere to give his “brother” Borat some “horse-meat sausages” from home.

He arrived on the red-carpet in a black fur hat and full Kazakh national costume, flanked by Borat’s “mother and relative”, who were wearing equally eye-catching clothes.

But they were quickly and politely escorted away by officials when it transpired they did not have a ticket.

The Navi.kz (link in Russian) article goes into a bit more detail. Apparently Jantik brought eggs (a common euphemism for testicles) with him, claiming Borat had lost them in school when they were cut off. He also said the reason Borat couldn’t come to let his “brother” in was that he was busy with a frozen penis. Apparently he felt he could out-shock the shock comic. Navi concludes that this is the last thing Kazakhstan needs right now. While Zhantik professes to follow the higher road of Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Britain, Idrissov, who said the film was kind of funny but basically toilet humor, that it had nothing to do with Kazakhstan, and that government reactions to repress Cohen were ultimately hurtful, in fact he shows that he “doth protest too much.” This is something Jantik had apparently been planning for a long time, and the BBC article does sort of paint him as obsessed with Borat.

His press-conference in London where he tried to speak the truth about Kazakhstan was poorly attended. But maybe he didn’t advertise well the fact that there would be free khazi, horsemeat sausage. That alone was worth coming out for.

Frankly I’m disapointed it didn’t turn out better (And so is Navi.kz). It was a good idea. Bringing apashka was an awesome move, and free horsemeat sausage was a nice touch. It was something fun in place of economic and social-political statistics. Perhaps Idrissov would agree to an open day at the Embassy where Kazakh goodies are served, and everyone wears traditional dress. Perhaps a demonstration of Kazakh horse skills and other fun stuff…

This is hopefully my last post on Borat ever, but my attention was caught by Sean Robert’s
post on the pseudo-national anthem at the end of Borat’s film. He discusses the suspicious Armenian conspiracy (and while he dismisses it, why is President Kocharayan in Astana on the week after the opening of the film?).

However, the “national anthem” is actually a pretty well-targeted parody of Kazakhstan’s own PR campaigns, internal and external. And Kazakhstan must learn that statistics and industry do not capture the public imagination. The politicians and businessmen who are excited about economic growth already know about Kazakhstan and therefore do not need to see the PR.

Some excerpts from the lyrics of the anthem:

Kazakhstan Number one exporter of potassium; All other countrues have inferior pottasium.
Kazakhstan home of Tinshien Swimming Pool; its length 30 meters and width 6 meters.
Kazakhstan industry best in the world; we invented toffee and the trouser belt.

Which are reminiscent of such points of pride that Kazakhstan has almost 100% of all the elements in the periodic table in its territory, that the Medeu skating rink is the largest in the world, etc…

It’s particularly poignant now that Kazakhstan is filming a television serial, to be shown on Caspionet in English and Kazakh, on Innovations of Kazakhstan (seen on Khabar last night). The film will basically advertise new ideas that began in Kazakhstan and the first episode will be on the Kazakh-British Technical University, a joint project. The director said that it was exciting because no where in the CIS do you see a former Communist Party building being given to a university or other civil society institution.

I am also constantly amused by an advertisement on Khabar which shows a young man apparently preparing his valedictorian speech and he stays up all night not coming up with any ideas. While he is standing on the stage at graduation, flustered, a fellow graduate tells him that Education is the future. The ad ends by telling us that education is one of the key instruments for economic competiveness of the country. “Get educated so your country can become the 50 most competitive countries”? Not a compelling argument.

The plan that economic reform comes first and then social and political reforms is questionable because once you fill your government with economists and financists and people who love balance sheets, it’s very hard to get them to even understand social problems. Outside the context of economics. As Kazakhstan begins more social reforms, as well as Social Business Corporations one hopes they will be able to muster the ability to get beyond macroeconomics. After all, the latest WEF Competitveness report, giving Kazakhstan an overall rating of 56, did rate the macroeconomy as 10th in the world. 10th. S0 paying attention to other areas, such as basic education and social services, may actually boost their economy as well.

On another note, is Kazakhstan really the number one exporter of pottasium? I can’t dismiss it out of hand, and that is a good sign of effective parody.

EDIT: The words are here. The mp3 download on that page is only the first 30 seconds–not worth downloading.

I went to get my haircut this weekend at, I might note, a fairly expensive (but conveniently located) salon. There was a sign on the door that said

We asked about this and the salon workers told us that the akimat dreamed this up. The salon claims that staff of the akimat came to every salon in Astana and told them participate in the program or they could be shut down or audited for taxes.

Obviously this led to some ill will on the part of the salons. They said the program was incredibly stupid because if they are forced to give free or cheap haircuts, they aren’t going to take the time to do a great job. Further, they claim that almost no one showed up for the free haircut, and people are showing up outside the designated hours and demanding their free haircuts, threatening to complain to the akimat, etc. etc. They also say that some percentage of their clientele are pensioners or veterans who have the cash for a good haircut, manicure, pedicure, etc, and these people will now come when it’s free. Finally, the fact is that there are salons whose business is serving older people, with low-priced decent haircuts, and these places will likely go out of business.

Overall, if everything we were told is true (and I have no way of verifying this), it seems like a step backwards. Instead of giving pensioners more money, they give them free, low-quality services. Instead of trying to generate voluntary, good-will inspired altruism and community, they force businesses to participate in programs that will hurt them. One can’t help but wonder if pensioners really need haircuts and a savings of a whole 300-800 tenge a month! Did someone in the akimat see a group of old people with bad hairstyles and think, “How inappropriate for our beautiful new capital that there should be ugly people in it?” Or perhaps someone’s grandfather is a veteran with fast-growing hair?

The Kazakhstan Embassy in the United States puts out a newsletter, had two items on Borat today.

The first is the Take That, Borat program to show Westerners the real Kazakhstan.

The tours, called “Kazakhstan vs. Boratistan” and “Jagzhemash!!! See the Real Kazakhstan”, include visits to the cosmopolitan Almaty and its beautiful surroundings, tours of ancient sites such as the Hodja Akhmed Yassaui Mausoleum in Turkestan, as well as plentiful opportunities to meet and interact with the real Kazakhs. In addition to sightseeing, tours also include visits to local colorful bazaars, artifact shops and high fashion boutiques, as well as trying kumyss, the deliciously tasting Kazakh traditional drink made from fermented horse milk.

Molotsi, it’s about time someone tried to launch a tourism campaign to get Westerners here. The nation has a lot to offer, but I think the tourism angle gets ignored because the profits aren’t in the billions of dollars, or out of shame–”Who would want to come here? Kazakhs themselves vacation in Turkey and Europe!”

Second, Kazakh Aul of the US (aul means village), an organization dedicating to promoting Kazakh culture for children adopted by Americans, and aiming to open a cultural center in the US, has made a statement regarding Borat’s movie and its effect on adopted children here.

We can expect adults to process the humor and get that the joke is not on Kazakhs, but we really can’t expect kids to. Especially kids that may already have a sense of shame or alienation associated with Kazakhstan–in so far as someone brought them out of that country “to lead a better life”:

Another adoptive mother described her children watching an announcer on VH1 segue from a story on Madonna’s recent adoption of an African boy to a story on Borat, saying something along the lines of, “And, now, a country you wouldn’t want to adopt from, Kazakhstan…” The woman’s 7-year-old Kazakh daughter burst into tears.

What a 7-year old child was doing watching VH-1, I don’t know, and I’m not arguing for censoring or banning the film, but it is something to think about, particularly as other people pick up on the joke, such as Boris, Borat’s brother! In their heart of hearts, do Kurt Loder or this Boris guy really think Kazakhs are stupid savages? Probably not. Do they care? Probably not.

EDIT: Pic found on a message board for Kazakhstani studying in the US. If it’s copyrighted, let me know and I’ll take it down