Bucharest’s citizens, some of the rudest people in the world, says Reader’s Digest survey

Bucharest residents are ranked on the 35th position in the world in terms of politeness, according to a survey made by Reader’s Digest magazine on global courtesy. The survey was held by undercover reporters from Reader’s Digest editions in 35 countries to assess the citizens of their biggest cities. For each location, they conducted three tests: walking into public buildings 20 times behind people to see if they would hold the door open for them, buying small items from 20 stores and recording whether the sales assistants said thank you and dropping a folder full of papers in 20 busy locations to see if anyone would help pick them up.

The Reader’s Digest journalists considered the three trials as the world’s biggest real-life test of common courtesy, with more than 2,000 tests of actual behavior. To carry out the survey, they awarded one point for each positive outcome and nothing for a negative one, giving each city a maximum score of 60.

For Bucharest, the reporters didn’t receive a thank you from shop assistants when buying something. Moreover, Bucharest residents do not hold the door for those going into a building after them. Also, Bucharest residents are not very helpful either. If you drop something, nobody will help you gather your stuff.

The study also showed that women are more disrespectful than men and elderly people are more disrespectful than youth.

The cities ranked among the least polite include Amsterdam, Montreal, Milan, Bangkok, Moscow, Bucharest and Mumbai, while the cities with the most polite people are New York, Zurich and Toronto.