The events of the film mostly take part in and around Petrozavodsk and the film makers would have liked to film there, but when scouting for locations, it became clear that the scenery there is nowadays way too modern for a film that takes place in 1930s, thus they had to look elsewhere for suitable locations. Those were eventually found in Estonia.
Originally Aku Louhimies was going to direct this film, but eventually he was unable to participate in this production due to other commitments (namely The Unknown Soldier (2017)).
This film has 50 speaking roles and when the casting was made, the first choice for all these roles accepted to join the production. Some even rescheduled their other works to be able to participate.
In the original novel on which the film is based on, the name of Jussi Ketola's wife in Soviet Union was Irina, while in the film her name is Sara.