Goofs

Raisa's friend is taken away by police and drops her coat in the gutter. Different camera angle shows the coat on the sidewalk. Then it is picked up twice. After the 2nd time another camera angle shows that the coat wasn't picked up but a scarf, then thrown back down into the gutter.

During the fight between Anatoly and Leo, Anatoly's shirt rides up just as he stabs himself. The knife does not go through the shirt. But in a later scene where he is taken away a bloody hole in his shirt is seen.

The position of Vlad's son's legs changes between shots when he is sitting on the railway station and talking to Vlad.

All of the photos taken on the spire are from below, but the one in the newspaper (7 minutes) is from above.

Mother of the killed boy says he was Leo's godson. This implies a religious affiliation, which in Stalinist times would have been an impossible thing to a high ranking officer of the Soviet army/militia.

Most of the uniformed officers and non-commissioned officers have no orders, medals, or ribbons on their uniforms. Since they all appear to have been in their jobs for years, they should have been wearing at least a few of these, especially since most are at the right age to be World War II veterans.

By the summer 1953 Stalin was already dead, but the characters still refer to him as the leader giving orders.

All the officers seen are wearing shoulder board insignia. The insignia shown, with the blue trim and blue center strip are indicative of the "Aviation Branch". Based on the duties and locations of the officers, they are definitely not Aviation. The shoulder boards should have red trim with a red stripe signifying ground forces.

When Leo convinced Raisa to travel with him to Moscow to continue investigation into Alexey's son death, she is leaving her work-place without any permission. This is a crime worth of one-year imprisonment, but nothing happens to her when she come back.

Although Mikhail Nesterov is called a General, he wears only a Colonel's rank insignia. This could be explained by his men referring to him by the nickname "General", given that in reality he would be a Colonel stationed at a very undesirable militia outpost in rural Russia.

At 23'45", the dead body's head rolls back and forth, which could happen once rigor mortis has relaxed, although some have suggested the body's neck would be stiff because of rigor.

When Leo confronts Raisa and she gets a closeup, you can actually see that Noomi Rapace wears green contact lenses to obscure that she has brown eyes.

At 49'49", obvious computer generated view of Volsk.

While General Nesterov wears Colonel's shoulder boards, all officers are wearing the gold parade boards. On the service uniform, the boards were olive with their branch colors indicated by the service stripes(single for company grade officers & two for field grades). The stars are correct in size for the ranks. As a General Officer, Nesterov should have had the double, wide red stripes on his pants.

The film is set in 1953, many of the soldiers are armed with AKM assault rifles. This rifle was not introduced until 1959. The soldiers should have had AK 47 rifles.

When the villain meets Vlad's son at the train station at about 1:26, modern catenary wires are briefly visible. All the trains are coal fired steam.

Leo and his colleagues presumably work at MGB - The Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoj Bezopasnosti). However, such Ministry officially seized to exist on March 5, 1953: the day when Stalin passed away. It was replaced by the Ministry of Internal Affaires (MVD, Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh, Djel). The following year, 1954, the infamous KGB, The State Security Committee, was formed - which, again presumably, is the role offered to Leo at the end (which he declines and proposes creating and leading a homicide department instead, which, of course, in real life had been in operation for many years, known as Otdel to rassledovaniju ubijstv). So, the reference to MGB in that specific time period - is incorrect.

In the factory scene in the city of Rostov, one of the machines has black and yellow markings that indicate great caution is to be used while operating the machine. These are modern markings that didn't exist in the 1950's.

Leo and Raisa are standing in Moscow in front of a railway station, it says in Russian: "Moscow Central Station". There is no central railway station in Moscow, but several stations where the trains leave to different directions.