Trivia

Two hundred bright lamps were needed for the costumes worn by the Etsilopp, lamps that could not be found in the Soviet Union. Georgiy Daneliya asked Viktor Grishin, who was then first secretary of the Moscow City Council, for help in obtaining the lamps. But Grishin refused. Daneliya later asked future Russian president Boris Yeltsin , who had replaced Grishin at the council after the latter was fired. The director managed to convince Yeltsin, who finally procured the lamps, and later used to say that it was the lamp incident that cost Grishin his job. See more