So, you know my own experiences better than I?
The point is they *did not know I was a foreigner* until after they'd treated me because *that* was the point at which my father told them and asked how a fee for treatment could be made. My father and I spoke Russian *only* when we went into the office. It wasn't until *after* I was treated that they knew I was a foreigner. That's when they panicked. If they'd known before treatment, I'd have probably been sent to (at least) the embassy. Being a local clinic, I doubt seriously the practitioner would have wanted to chance an international incident by treating a US citizen and having something go wrong.
So you can fsck-off telling me what my own experiences were and the reasons for them. No one better than I knows how well (and differently) U.S. citizens were treated in the Soviet Union than Soviets. We were the "Golden Children" everywhere we went and we'd been raised to reject that "special treatment" for ourselves. Which is why, in public, neither my brother nor I *ever* spoke a word of English and it is also why we wore our school uniforms almost everywhere we went because we knew our Western clothes would make us stand out. We intentionally *always* tried to pass for Soviet children. We were often successful, as we were the first and only time I was treated by Soviet clinicians.
Quoting some US government propaganda site and suggesting that trumps my own, real-life experiences is beneath you.
So you can fsck-off telling me what my own experiences were and the reasons for them. No one better than I knows how well (and differently) U.S. citizens were treated in the Soviet Union than Soviets. We were the "Golden Children" everywhere we went and we'd been raised to reject that "special treatment" for ourselves. Which is why, in public, neither my brother nor I *ever* spoke a word of English and it is also why we wore our school uniforms almost everywhere we went because we knew our Western clothes would make us stand out. We intentionally *always* tried to pass for Soviet children. We were often successful, as we were the first and only time I was treated by Soviet clinicians.
Quoting some US government propaganda site and suggesting that trumps my own, real-life experiences is beneath you.