Interesting. I was pretty young so I can't really chime in but I know my parents were in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) so urban areas may have had more awareness? They were also part of some underground Jewish study groups which would have given them a different perspective.
I guess you're right. The Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev were different from most of the USSR in many aspects, including official anti-semitism in universities. And Tashkent was yet another universe altogether.
