We are continuing our look at former republis of the Soviet Union today with Kazakhstan. The second largest former Soviet republic behind Russia was made famous/infamous by the film "Borat" (2006) starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the fake television reporter from Kazakhstan.
The film, which was in my top five list for the best films of 2006, will always be a special to me because the rodeo scene where Borat/Cohen tricked rodeo-goers into singing a butchered verison of "The Star Spangled Banner" was filmed at a rodeo in my hometown of Salem, Va. And, just today, I saw that the Internet Movie Database indicated one of the film's factual goofs is that it shows Salem, which neighbors the larger city of Roanoke, as being in the eastern part of Virginia as opposed to southwest Virginia.
Many of the Kazkakhstan village scenes for the movie were actually filmed in Romania. In one of the scenes, the audience is introduced to Borat's neighbor Nursultan Tuyakbey, who is a cross between the names of the current Kazak president/dictator Nursultan Nazabayev and his political opponent in the mid-2000s Zharmakan Tuyakbey.
In April, Nazabayev ran virtually unopposed and got close to 100 percent of 'the vote.'
Today's question is what is the capital of Kazakhstan? Is the answer:
A) Alma Ata
B) Astana
C) Chimkent
D) Pavlador
This is the fifth of 17 entries in this series, and the first one presented in trivia question form. The other four Soviet republics in this series were Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgzstan* and (the) Ukraine.
*-This has to be one of the hardest countries in the world to spell!
SIDEBAR: My friend Bruce Piephoff, a folk singer in Greensboro, NC, may not be heading out to Kazakhstan for a concert anytime soon, but he will be performing a live set for WXDU (88.7-FM, Durham), the student-run radio station of Duke University at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. My personal favorite song of his might very well be "I Remember Asheville," even though I've only been Asheville, NC, one time!
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