Fast-food giant of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan!
McDonald’s opened its first patty joint Tuesday in the tiny Central Asian nation perhaps best known for its people’s taste for horsemeat and mare’s milk — and as the birthplace of comic Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” character.
Huge crowds descended under the Golden Arches in the capital city of Astana, and even President Nursultan Nazarbayev dropped by for a bite on Wednesday.
The $3.5 million, 9,000-square-foot restaurant seats more than 200 and includes a drive-thru and self-order kiosks. Kazakhstan is now the 120th nation with at least one McDonald’s.
The former Soviet satellite has been aggressively seeking big-name companies in hopes of boosting an economy hurt by sinking oil prices. The country’s biggest export is oil — not potassium or apples, as Borat has contended.
Starbucks and French supermarket Carrefour have both arrived since December, Newsweek reported.
Kazakhstan — bordered by Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and the Caspian Sea — is best known to Americans as the cinematic backdrop of the 2006 spoof “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
The movie, once banned in Kazakhstan, is now hailed in the obscure, sparsely populated nation of 17 million for putting it on the tourist map.