[4] After graduating from school, Yuri Bykov worked as a loader for two weeks, then the next two to three years as a discothèque manager and as a stage machinist in the club of culture, and also attended a local drama group in parallel.

[10] The film was shot using 150 thousand rubles, which Bykov previously planned to invest in his training at the directing faculty of the VGIK from Vadim Abdrashitov, where he was accepted twice.

In 2016, the American company Netflix received distribution rights and plans to remake the film as a mini-series, titled Seven Seconds, which will include 10 episodes.

The picture received a number of prestigious awards, including the Grigori Gorin prize for the best script and the diploma of the Russian Guild of Film Critics ("For the uncompromising artistic expression") at the Kinotavr-2014 festival.

Yuri Bykov notes that he shot the series "according to the principles of the comics" in its light form and followed the instructions of the showrunner Aleksandr Tsekalo about creating a "Russian HBO".

[20] He shot two-thirds of the film The Age of Pioneers, dedicated to Alexei Leonov and his spacewalk, but because of creative disagreements he was removed from the project.

Bykov noted in an interview that is not interested in seeing the movie because the story became drastically simplified and the film's tone became overly patriotic.

Bykov pointed out that to the best of his knowledge the film was completely re-shot, with the possible exception of one scene that could not be repeated because of unrestorable scenery.

Bykov notes that at the beginning of the project there were talks about the possibility of an auteur series, but then he became an ordinary hired director without the right to participate in post-production, including editing.

Despite the negative outcome of the film, which ends with the utter failure of the struggle and the death of all participants, sociologist David Leupold sees in the work an example of "subversive pessimism":"Unlike kitschy revolutionary romance, which in its essence is exactly the opposite — namely reactionary inertia — the film deprives the viewer of the longed-for catharsis.

"[22]On 13 October 2017, Yuri announced that he has betrayed the progressive generation and that he will take an indefinite hiatus from directing, but will still finish his work on The Guard,[23][24] which was released in 2019.