Instead of casting a Soviet actress for the role of Nadya, director/co-writer Eldar Ryazanov chose Barbara Brylska, a Pole, which caused controversy in the Soviet Union. Brylska spoke Russian with a heavy accent so her voice was dubbed by Valentina Talyzina, who appears in the film herself as Nadya's friend.
The two apartment buildings in Moscow and in Leningrad (known as St. Petersburg today) with the same address, 3-ya ulitsa Stroiteley, 25 ("25, 3rd Constructors Street"), are actual buildings Nos. 125 and 113 in Prospekt Vernadskogo, Moscow. They are only 700 meters apart. Moscow or St. Petersburg never had streets named "3-ya ulitsa Stroiteley".
The two consecutive episodes of The Irony of Fate were originally broadcast by the Soviet central television channel, Programme One, on 1 January 1976, at 18:00. The film was a resounding success with audiences: author Fedor Razzakov recalled that "virtually the entire country watched the show"; the number of viewers was estimated to have been about 100 million. In response to popular demand, the feature had a first re-run on 7 February. By 1978, after several further broadcasts of the picture, the accumulated number of viewers for all of the showings including the first was estimated at some 250 million. A shortened 155 minutes version was released to cinemas on 16 August 1976; it sold some 7 million tickets. The readers of Sovetskii Ekran, the official publication of the State Committee for Cinematography, voted "The Irony of Fate" as the best film of 1976, and chose Andrey Myagkov as the best actor of the year. In 1977, Eldar Ryazanov, Emil Braginskiy, cinematographer Vladimir Nakhabtsev, composer Mikael Tariverdiev and actors Barbara Brylska and Andrey Myagkov were all awarded the USSR State Prize in recognition of their participation in making the film.
Oleg Basilashvili was originally cast as Ippolit but due to obligations on the Leningrad stage, he could not participate in the film and Yuriy Yakovlev was cast instead. However, you can see Basilashvili's photo when Nadya picks it up from the snow.
The film is a classic piece of Russian popular culture and is traditionally broadcast in Russia and almost all former Soviet republics every New Year's Eve. This tradition was discontinued in Ukraine in 2015 when license holder STB decided not to broadcast the movie after actress Valentina Talyzina was banned from entering Ukraine for "statements contradicting the interests of national security".