The Swimming scenes were shot in summer, so the snow on water and land is artificial.
The title is a slang word from the counterculture of Moscow and Leningrad, meaning a mess, turmoil or confusion.The structure of the film itself represents a similar mixture of characters and stories which are not all connected logically.
Aleksandr Bashirov's (Babakin's) monologue about Yuri Gagarin while being interrogated was improvised.