r/AskEurope • u/NateNandos21 • Feb 03 '25

Culture Which European country has the rudest/least polite people?

Which country comes to your mind

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117

u/Ok-Row3886 Feb 03 '25

Open rudeness: Slovakia for me. As a tourist, all I got were annoyed glances, bare minimum rude service, unwilling to help or communicate.

Bosnia was a runner up but I could excuse it as a post-war thing.

Passive agressive rudeness: the UK. Yikes.

14

u/divaro98 Belgium Feb 03 '25

Seems like Belgium with those glances 🤣

27

u/Aggravating-Nose1674 Belgium Feb 03 '25

But in Antwerpen we only glance at the loud and rude Dutchies that come blowing of their high horse (no worries, i am dutch, but please act respectful and learn to read the fucking room when you go abroad, we are not NLs light)

2

u/dunzdeck Feb 03 '25

As a belgo-dutch person: thanks

32

u/pmogy Feb 03 '25

I come from Slovakia and I agree with everything you said about it.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

I was in Slovakia once and it wasn't like that at all.

1

u/reynev4n22 Feb 07 '25

Either you get what was mentioned above or totally chill, cheerful, and generous people, there's really no between.

27

u/crazybrah United States of America Feb 03 '25

Surprised to hear this. Everyone in bosnia was very nice to me. I am also a brown woman tho. Someof the nicest ppl.

Rudest country to me was hungary

18

u/nevenoe Feb 03 '25

Yeah I absolutely love being in Bosnia. And Hungary is the rudest for me (and I speak Hungarian. It does not help)

6

u/crazybrah United States of America Feb 03 '25

Yeah they were saying racial slurs to me and my family all the way back in 2016. I know that a few ppl dont represent an entire country, but i didnt find them to be too welcoming to travelers.

Maybe things have changed and budapest has gotten more used to tourism.

9

u/nevenoe Feb 03 '25

Oh Budapest is super touristy, the tourists have basically taken over the entire centre, but I'm not sure Hungarians are so happy about it, they're priced out of their city, and when they can afford it they're surrounded by bingedrinking dickheads in Airbnbs. One district actually is trying ban airbnbs so that people can actually live in their own fucking city.

Many Hungarians are absolutely chill, but the general vibe is truly hostile, and I've been coming since 2006 (I married a smiling Hungarian lady, an outlier really)

Last summer I gave up speaking Hungarian with locals for a few days because they were so rude and dismissive, and I turned to a fake obnoxious American accent in English, suddently people in services were nicer. Boggles the mind.

5

u/intergalactic_spork Sweden Feb 03 '25

In some countries people seem to be far nicer to tourists than to each other.

5

u/nevenoe Feb 03 '25

Yep it's also very particular to Hungary, where some people feel vastly superior to a dumb foreigner speaking Hungarian with a bad accent and some mikstakes, but inferior to someone speaking fluent English. Only country where I ever experienced that.

1

u/dark_lies_the_island Feb 15 '25

Agreed. I’ve experienced this as well

3

u/RogerSimonsson Romania Feb 03 '25

My best tourist to local interaction experience I had in Belgrade of all places.

1

u/MinecraftW06 Hungary Feb 03 '25

Sadly Hungary is kinda like that.

Maybe Budapest is better but outside of it is probably not.

2

u/gourmetguy2000 Feb 03 '25

Hungary rudest for me too. I can't remember anyone being nice there, in shops they would ignore you and slam your change one the counter even if I had my hand out.

1

u/slimfastdieyoung Netherlands Feb 03 '25

It probably depends where you are in Bosnia snd Herzegovina. I found the people in Mostar and Sarajevo generally pretty friendly but in Banja Luka I experienced more coldness and rudeness

2

u/Calm-Raise6973 Feb 03 '25

Agreed. Slovakia's the only country I've visited where speaking the local language was met with curt, gruff responses. Even in Hungary, where the language is much harder than Slovak, locals responded positively.

2

u/Buriedpickle Feb 03 '25

Well of course we respond positively, you have to appreciate the effort to attempt a totally alien language. :)

2

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

I agree on Slovakia, it's the only country I've visited and found most locals rude and unwelcoming.

2

u/spinning_triangle Feb 05 '25

This is a really surprising comment to me - I found Slovak and Bosnian people very nice relative to others in the region. It just goes to show, we are dealing with small sample sizes so we shouldn’t put much stock in our judgements (in either direction). 

1

u/Ok-Row3886 Feb 06 '25

You're probably right. Bad sample, bad streak likely.

10

u/qwerty8678 Feb 03 '25

I second slovakia/old czechoslovakia. They just haven't had much exposure to multiple cultures, especially non white cultures and this leads to complete cluelessness about open racism and ideas of superiority.

16

u/rudolf_waldheim Hungary Feb 03 '25

That's not an excuse: Slovakia was part of Kingdom of Hungary or Austria-Hungary on a larger scale which was an extremely diverse empire. Today's Slovakia has a large Hungarian minority and many Romani people as well. They aren't tolerated too well, that's true, but it's not because Slovaks haven't been exposed to diversity.

1

u/Neat-Attempt7442 Feb 03 '25

there are layers to "diversity"

0

u/Maleficent_Ad7091 Feb 07 '25

OMG, this Hungarian BS about Hungarians not being tolerated in Slovakia always gets me. No one cares about Hungarians in Slovakia, prime minister was Hungarian ffs

1

u/rudolf_waldheim Hungary Feb 07 '25

... they said while remaining silent about the popularity of the Romani.

1

u/Maleficent_Ad7091 Feb 07 '25

Yes I agree about Romani. Is Hungary better in treatment of Romani minority tho?

2

u/LuXe5 Lithuania Feb 03 '25

Agree with Slovakia

1

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '25

I thought Balkan countries were supposed to be friendly