The movie is based on the book The Lion's Share (Bolshaya Paika) by Yuli Dubov, who later went on to work for oligarch Boris Abramovich Berezovsky.

[1] During the Mikhail Gorbachev years, Platon Makovsky and four buddies of his are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement.

[1][2][3] The film is based on "Bolshaya Paika" ("The Big Slice") - a novel by Yuli Dubov, depicting the real biography of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and his partners.

In June 2009, Dubov and Berezovsky were convicted in absentia (at that time, they were both living in exile in England) in a Russian court for the events that served as the basis for the book to 9 and 13 years of imprisonment respectively.

[7] The New Yorker stated: "Once a freedom-loving idealist, Platon used his genius to become a monster, unhesitatingly sacrificing his ideals and his closest friends.