The film is based on the book of Fazil Iskander "Sandro of Chegem".
Nika Award 1989 - Best supporting actor - Zinovy Gerdt.
USSR Top Box Office Leaders of All Time - placed 99.
The first instance in Soviet Cinema where a studio or production company handled the distribution of the film throughout the USSR by itself, without going through the old fashioned government run network.
While foreign import films about Mafia type organized crime were popular in the USSR, this was the first time such a story was made there domestically with a Soviet setting, in this case an unspecified Caucasus republic.