No, we were pulled into the police station in Harbin after being set up by a taxi driver, they had a Russian translator there for us. When we pulled out the NZ

No, we were pulled into the police station in Harbin after being set up by a taxi driver, they had a Russian translator there for us. When we pulled out the NZ passports the police officer started yelling at the taxi driver and we were herded out of the station. So it seems fairly clear that it was some sort of setup to try and get Russian tourists (who are potentially used to corruption). Or maybe they just don't like Russian's and pull them in to check them out. We also had issues crossing the border from Blagoveshensk to Hei Hei, but that was because the officer at the border (and this was all from body language, there were no translators or anything like that) was not convinced that the NZ passports were not fakes, probably they don't see much variety on that particular border crossing.