Trivia

It is an unbreakable tradition that Russian cosmonauts and foreign guests watch this movie the day before they blast off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

During the scene on the boat the blood on Vereschagin's face is real. One evening Pavel Luspekayev was sitting in a Makhachkala City restaurant while two visitors started a knife fight. Luspekayev was involved and the knife blade badly cut his eyebrow. It was not possible to fix or hide the cut during the filming, so a scene with the cabin glass broken by a bullet was introduced in the script.

As the white army officer from Abdullah's band gets thrown out of Vereschagin's window he says "His grenades are all wrong", which became a popular expression for years afterward. This line was improvised and was not in the script originally.

One stuntman died in an accident during the filming.Many other accidents occurred due to the poor overall discipline and security.Some props were stolen by local thieves overnight but security improved after director Motyl hired a local crime boss to play the role of a gang member in Abdullah's gang.

Only two professional actresses were cast as wives of Abdullah. The rest were a basketball player, a scientist and a shop assistant. As they had to go back to work, the wives are played by soldiers in the covered scenes.