Backstory: The most unwanted man in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is often a joke: to Kazakh military recruits and foreign diplomats, who groan about assignment to the country's new, Vegas-style capital, Astana (which means literally "capital"); to politically minded Kazakhs, who recall that remote outpost's previous name, Akmola, or "White Tomb."

And, perhaps most of all, it's a joke for British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who portrays a faux Kazakh journalist - "Borat" - on HBO's popular "Da Ali G Show." This month, even the international press hooted when Mr. Cohen performed his Borat shtick before millions of viewers at the MTV Europe Music Awards - and was subsequently threatened with legal action by Kazakhstan's foreign ministry. One official observed darkly: "We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way."

According to Borat Sagdiyev - who calls himself the Central Asian nation's "No. 2 top television reporter" - his countrymen regret "the terrible events of 7-11," routinely cage women, punch goats for sport, and get their kicks from fermented horse urine.

For the record, Kazakhstan's national drink is kumys, or fermented horse milk, says Roman Vassilenko, the spokesman for the Kazakh Embassy in Washington. During the five years Borat has been putting the former Soviet republic on the map for tittering Westerners, Mr. Vassilenko has made it his mission to follow in the comedian's wake, making corrections. When Borat laughlingly claims that misogyny is a popular Kazakh pastime, Vassilenko objects. The ancient Kazakh tradition of bride kidnapping, still practiced in some remote areas, he says, is illegal. Allegations of goat abuse hit closer to home, as a polo-like game played with goat carcasses is both popular and legal.

Officials have reason to worry that viewers will take Cohen's parody seriously. After the MTV broadcast, a Kazakh film crew in Washington, D.C., surveyed passersby to see if anyone was familiar with their country. Eight of ten were not, Vassilenko says. Of the two who were, one had served in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan, and one said, "I know Borat."

"Most people in the West don't know anything about Kazakhstan," says Rachid Nougmanov, a member of the Kazakh opposition working in London. "They just think we're between China and Dracula somewhere."

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It is small wonder Borat is all many Americans know of Genghis Khan's playground. It can be hard to know where to start. Before embarking on a five-week research trip there last spring, I typed "Kazakhstan" into the St. Louis Public Library database. Four of five books were lost; the last was titled, "Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise."

I settled for a small stack of dubiously translated volumes left by a Kazakh exchange student. A cookbook offered "Delicacies of Horseflesh," a pungent reminder that horses have for centuries been a source of livelihood and calories on the sprawling steppes. The real prize, though, was an illustrated history of the Silk Road, whose caravan routes Middle Eastern and Chinese traders once traveled to meet in southern Kazakhstan. The litany of Central Asian names within might have been drawn from "The Lord of the Rings" - there was even a town called Sauron. I flipped through a section about a trackless desert plateau called the Ust Urt. Dominated by truculent camels, it looked like just the place you might find yourself craving a tall glass of horse milk.

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It's not hard to poke fun at Kazakhstan. Even Vassilenko, its tireless booster, concedes it's hard work to get the American press to take seriously "a 'stan like no other." But for a number of reasons now attracting Western notice, the world's ninth largest nation is no joke. As gas prices climb, Kazakhstan may even have the last laugh: The country sits on the largest oil field discovered in the past 30 years and is expected to match the oil production of Kuwait and Iran within 10 years.

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