When Nicolai is about to cut of the fingers from Soyka's dead body, he first puts his tie over his right shoulder. There is a camera angle change and the tie is back in its original position just as Nicolai grabs his tools. In the next shot the tie is back above Nicolai's shoulder.
When Nikolai and Semyon are drinking vodka during the diary exchange, Semyon empties his glass, but when he puts it back on the table it is full.
In the last river scene, the baby is alternately crying or sleeping as the camera angle switches back and forth.
When Anna visits Nikolai in the hospital after the knife fight, he is shown lying in his bed, and he turns his head to look at her, but when the camera shifts back to him, his head hasn't moved and he is still looking straight ahead.
After Nikolai had sex to prove he is not homosexual, he lays money on the bed to help the girl run away. He lays down a card on the money. The camera goes back to Nikolai. When it goes back to the girl the card has slid toward the girl and almost entirely off the money.
Azim and his nephew Ekrem are all apparently Turkish characters and Azim is part of the
Turkish mafia. However, the Turkish spoken by the actors is heavily broken and pronounced entirely improperly, the Turkish words and dialog are clearly phonetically memorized.
Tatiana has been on heroin according to the diary, and has had several shots recently, as can be seen on the needle marks. Therefore, the baby was addicted at birth and has to be treated with methadone or such. At 3 months of age, the baby should have the drugs out of his system. How much was in his system at birth depends on how soon before delivery the mother took drugs. The long term effects are dependent on the amount of drugs given to the mother especially if there was drug use in the first trimester. Many times there is a delay of several years before difficulties begin to appear, especially at school-age when learning difficulties become evident.
In the end credits, "Make up" is listed as "Maek up" at one point.
After Nikolai was accepted by the mafia bosses, he gets his stars tattooed. When he is in the public bath, the tattoos seem to be completely healed. However, when they are entering the baths, a slight redness is perceivable around the stars. There was one day between these scenes. While the usual for a tattoo is to be brighter at first, it can be assumed that between the particular individual's skin, the lighting and the humidity of the baths, a normal tattoo could seem to be more healed than it actually is.
During the public baths scene, when Nikolaï (Viggo Mortensen) walks toward the camera with Azim, you can clearly see on Viggo's left shoulder the Elvish tattoo he got while in New Zealand for the Lord of the Rings shooting (the tattoo is "nine" in elvish Tengwar writing).
While at the party, Nikolai has the young girl on his lap. They are drinking what appears to be a fifth of vodka. The girl seems to take a drink, but the vodka never reaches the neck of the bottle. She never makes a motion to swallow and immediately she kisses Nikolai. He motions for her to feed him some of the vodka. Again the vodka never reaches the neck of the bottle.
After Helen takes the baby out of the bed and carries her to Anna, for a short moment the baby breaks the fourth wall, clearly looking into the camera and at the camera crew.
When they digitally renamed the hospital from the Middlesex Hospital (actual location) to the "Trafalgar Hospital" (fictitious location), they didn't also adjust the dates. The roman dates engraved next to "Trafalgar Hospital" are MDCCXLV (1745) and MCMXXIX (1929), neither of which have any relevance to the battle of Trafalgar, which was fought in 1805.
When Nicolai tells Anna where Stepan is he says he is in Scotland, in Edinburgh. But he pronounces it "Edin-burg." The town's correct pronunciation is "Edin-bruh" or "Edin-bur-ruh."
When Anna approaches the Trans-Siberian Restaurant for the first time, a crew member's arm and equipment are visible reflected in the shiny brass plaque to the left of the door.
As Semyon is pouring Vodka into the ice bucket the camera and lights on the set are clearly seen reflecting off the shined, metal, rim of the ice bucket.
The scenes involving the football crowds make no logical sense for a real match at Stamford Bridge. In the first shot, the crowd is exiting the ground via the Britannia Gate on Fulham Road after a game. In the second shot, the crowd is moving from Fulham Broadway along Fulham Road towards the Britannia Gate (as it would before a game); in the third shot, a crowd of people is crossing Lillee Road and entering Brompton Cemetary via the north gate (as it would before a game) but in the next shot (in the cemetery itself), the crowd is moving in the opposite direction, towards the north gate and away from the ground as it would after a game.
The Chelsea fans also are only wearing blue shirts, not actual Chelsea shirts as they would be wearing.
Anna is supposedly worried what will happen to the baby if his Russian relatives are not found. But as a midwife, she'd be aware that a healthy newborn baby would easily be adopted by a good family.
Since Anna's family are law-abiding, it makes no sense for them not to go directly to the police once they confirm that the diary is about criminal matters.
Before Uncle Stepan spits in Nikolai's face, he utters an ominous-sounding Russian word "mrakabes!", which, in fact, means "obscurantist" and does not really belong there.
When Anna is leaving Trans-Siberian for the second time, Semyon kisses her goodbye once on each cheek. Anyone who has ever been to a Russian house for a visit knows that Russians kiss three times back, once on each cheek, returning back to the first cheek for the last kiss.