I recently spent a year travelling and deciding very carefully where to settle down. This is somewhat related to the question posed in the post, so I will briefly list what made me choose Bucharest in Romania.
English is (very) commonly spoken. Probably on par with Nordic countries.
Taxes—if you work as a contractor as I do, with the right legal structure you can bring your income tax rate (including obligatory social insurance, healthcare, etc.) down to 6%. Capital Gains Tax is only 10%.
Rule of law and civil liberties—those are pretty well established and respected.
Member of the EU—with all the convenience, efficiency and the extra protection of your freedoms and rights that a membership in EU brings.
Local population is extremely friendly towards foreigners.
Low crime rate
No tourists
The city is extremely walkable
Cheap (Uber here costs less than public transit in London or NYC)
Close proximity to mountains.
No, I don’t think that the LessWrong community should move here en masse. Just wanted to share my 2 bani’s worth.
I’m not sure where you see the contradiction. Do you assume that ease of communicating in English should attract tourists, or that the main cause for English fluency is usually tourism?
I was expecting the latter. If not tourism, how did English come to be spoken there? Is it more spoken in Bucharest than in other large mainland European cities?
English lessons have been obligatory in schools for decades here. I’ve heard (not sure how true that is) that this way the local dictator wanted to put some space between himself and the overlords in Moscow. AFAIK all the other communist countries were teaching Russian to their children.
Is it more spoken in Bucharest than in other large mainland European cities?
I got a strong impression that it is, although I haven’t checked the statistics.
Also, I think that the impact of tourism on English fluency is very limited—only people working directly with the tourists would be affected (waiters, guides, hotel staff, taxi drivers), and even then to a limited degree (you might master the vocabulary and grammar necessary to wait tables, but be unable to discuss the dissertation that you are writing).
English lessons have been obligatory in schools for decades here. I’ve heard (not sure how true that is) that this way the local dictator wanted to put some space between himself and the overlords in Moscow.
English lessons alone don’t result in people speaking English over their native language on a day to day basis which does happen in Berlin and Nordic countries.
Also, I think that the impact of tourism on English fluency is very limited—only people working directly with the tourists would be affected
No. Living in Berlin I do speak English with tourists in my free time. That both goes for rationalist events and for Salsa dancing.
Expats matter more then normal tourists but tourists who don’t speak German attending events is a factor for events I attend being run in English.
I recently spent a year travelling and deciding very carefully where to settle down. This is somewhat related to the question posed in the post, so I will briefly list what made me choose Bucharest in Romania.
English is (very) commonly spoken. Probably on par with Nordic countries.
Taxes—if you work as a contractor as I do, with the right legal structure you can bring your income tax rate (including obligatory social insurance, healthcare, etc.) down to 6%. Capital Gains Tax is only 10%.
Rule of law and civil liberties—those are pretty well established and respected.
Member of the EU—with all the convenience, efficiency and the extra protection of your freedoms and rights that a membership in EU brings.
Local population is extremely friendly towards foreigners.
Low crime rate
No tourists
The city is extremely walkable
Cheap (Uber here costs less than public transit in London or NYC)
Close proximity to mountains.
No, I don’t think that the LessWrong community should move here en masse. Just wanted to share my 2 bani’s worth.
I’m curious how it comes about that English is commonly spoken in Bucharest and yet there are no tourists.
I’m not sure where you see the contradiction. Do you assume that ease of communicating in English should attract tourists, or that the main cause for English fluency is usually tourism?
I was expecting the latter. If not tourism, how did English come to be spoken there? Is it more spoken in Bucharest than in other large mainland European cities?
English lessons have been obligatory in schools for decades here. I’ve heard (not sure how true that is) that this way the local dictator wanted to put some space between himself and the overlords in Moscow. AFAIK all the other communist countries were teaching Russian to their children.
I got a strong impression that it is, although I haven’t checked the statistics.
Also, I think that the impact of tourism on English fluency is very limited—only people working directly with the tourists would be affected (waiters, guides, hotel staff, taxi drivers), and even then to a limited degree (you might master the vocabulary and grammar necessary to wait tables, but be unable to discuss the dissertation that you are writing).
English lessons alone don’t result in people speaking English over their native language on a day to day basis which does happen in Berlin and Nordic countries.
No. Living in Berlin I do speak English with tourists in my free time. That both goes for rationalist events and for Salsa dancing.
Expats matter more then normal tourists but tourists who don’t speak German attending events is a factor for events I attend being run in English.