A video that's been making the international rounds captures an embarrassing moment for Kazakh officials kicking off a recent ski event.
Organizers of the 6th Kostanay regional ski festival were visibly mortified when former Menudo poster boy Ricky Martin's 1999 chart-topper "
Livin' La Vida Loca" blasted out of the speakers after the announcer declared solemnly: "Attention! The national anthem of the Republic of Kazakhstan."
Here's the video:
Naturally, few news outlets could avoid references to Sacha Baron Cohen's "
Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan" in presenting the anthem gaffe. Australia's "Herald Sun" left the least to the imagination with its "
Ricky Martin Make Glorious Anthem Of Kazakhstan" headline.
The film, and Cohen's brutally primitive "
Kazakhstan national anthem," infuriated the Kazakh establishment.
But in stark contrast to the huffing public hand-wringing engendered by the Cohen farce -- which even spawned
plans for a celluloid riposte -- Kazakhstan's political upper crust appeared to take this incident in stride, according to
"The Telegraph":
One of the first media organisations to report the anthem mix-up was Tengrinews, a private news agency linked to the Kazakh political elite.
-- Andy Heil