Back many years ago, we knew a Soviet emigre who always introduced himself as Dr. Kush***** (more letters for a real name). And, before we had even met him, someone else told us, "He always introduces himself as a doctor but he's only got a PhD equivalent in a non-medical field".
As an aside note on titles, in Germany an engineer with a masters' degree can call himself/herself Diplom-Ingenieur (abbreviated to Dipl-Ing, as something one puts on his business card). The difference here from the US - but this was the same as in the USSR and other nations that copied the German system - is that in order to get the diploma, one would have to do an additional presentation on a given topic to a cadre of professors, while fielding their questions. My father's Masters in Engineering was diploma defended as well. Someone told him he should put it on his business card and resume as well. He just shrugged it off. Because then you'd have to explain the whole process to Americans. In English.
