The original title means "Blue express" ("goluboy" literally means "light blue").
Although the movie was shot in USSR, it mostly included Asian actors to symbolise the situation in China at the end of the 1920s: there was a civil war between army and communists. The movie takes sides with the communists' view: it shows that poverty was widespread and that Western powers collaborated with the Chinese State (hence the two high-ranking Europeans included in the cast).