It's also way better than the book it was based on IMO (Roadside Picnic).
"Roadside Picnic" pdf: https://soviethistory.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pic...
Is there a credible source for this statement?
... because I was just reading about Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease (because of his recent movie "Still") and apparently he and two other people who worked in his earliest TV show (where he was a secondary character) got early onset Parkinson's, and he claims this is a mere coincidence, not enough to consider this a relevant "cluster" of Parkinson's.
In both cases it's three people who worked closely together catching a relatively rare disease. I wonder if it's relevant for Tarkovsky, given that Michael J. Fox thinks it wasn't relevant for him...
Outdoor shooting happened at Rotermanni Quarter, an old factory area next to the port of Tallinn, at various factories and train stations around the city, and at the old unused dam nearby. Scene of family leaving the bar takes place at the ash pond of Moscow Combined Power Plant #20 (in background) with its drainage chutes:
Don't miss the source link, because it's a memoir of second assistant camera technician with lots of photos:
https://immos.livejournal.com/67613.html
As for foamy wastewater, it came from the pulp mill. Its contents and potential toxicity could be anything, depending on part of the cycle that dumped the byproducts. Turpentine was a good candidate, and it could be combined with sawdust particles. However, if spending a couple of months by the river could give people cancer, local people would also have it.
Note that the mill opened in 1938, so, depending on who you ask, either the river had already been dead before Soviet era, or it was constantly being polluted in each year of it. To my unprofessional eye, the flow of Jägala river is way too small to effectively dilute the waste (nor all the little dams help it), but it was an important project economically:
edit: by lost I mean the usability was lost. it was destroyed in chemical process. thx for pointing out it was just half. but his textural differences are explained also by technique, he did it in his other works even through his late career (mixing sepia segments, different processing even in his final film)