[Arran]

Mike;
I take it that Soviet cars did not come equipped with block heaters, hence the hot oil change? Where I lived in Alberta every parking lot, near a workplace, had a row of electrical outlets to plug your car into, because if it were January, or February, and did not plug the car, or truck in, you were not going to start it again when you wanted to go home. I remember there was a school parking lot, with a park or filed next to it, and I would take a tube portable radio over there, and use one of the outlets to plug it in and listen to it during the summer months.
My dad went up to Thule, in Greenland, whilst he was in the Canadian Air Force, and some U.S Army guys (or USAF) did not know that they had to plug in the block heater on their truck, unless the engine was running. They parked their truck, shut the engine off, and did not plug in the block heater, and left it that way for two hours or more, in the dead of winter. So the truck had to be rowed, or pushed inside one of the garages, and left to thaw overnight, their bosses were NOT happy to say the least. I'm guessing that these guys came from one of the Southern states, as someone from Michigan, or North Dakota would have known better, but who knows?
Regards
Arran.