The next week, the government hired two Western public relations firms to counter Borat's claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in "The New York Times". The ad carried testimonials about the nation's democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. On a previous occasion, Borat responded to such official complaints by issuing his own "press release", a bunch of random Cyrillic characters. He would again respond when promoting his movie in front of the Kazakhstani Embassy in Washington, roundly denouncing the advertisements as "Uzbek propaganda".