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Moscow is one of the least polite cities in the world, according to a survey of 36 cities released Wednesday.

The Russian capital ranked 31st, ahead of only Seoul, South Korea; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bucharest, Romania; and last-place Mumbai, India, according to the survey by Reader's Digest magazine.

The most polite people live in New York, followed by Zurich and Toronto, the survey found.

The magazine sent out a team of reporters -- half of them men, half of them women -- to assess the politeness of residents in big cities in 35 countries.

The reporters gauged the politeness of strangers by carrying out three tests: Each followed people into public buildings 20 times to see whether the door would be held open for them, each bought small items from 20 stores and recorded whether sales assistants said thank you, and each dropped a folder filled with papers in 20 busy locations to see whether anyone would help pick up the fallen papers.

Calling Moscow and Bucharest the rudest cities in Europe, the magazine described an instance when an affluent-looking woman in her 40s failed to hold open a door on Moscow's Prospekt Vernadskogo.

When asked why, she chided the reporter: "I am not a doorman. It's not my job to hold doors. If someone gets hurt, they should be quicker on their feet."

The survey found that people were just as courteous in rich countries as in poor ones and that people acted nearly as politely during rush hour as at other times of the day.

Also, no evidence was found to support the age-old complaint that young people tend not to be polite. Overall, people over 60 turned out to be the least courteous, while those under 40 were the most helpful of all age groups.