In Russian, "Balagan" means "travelling circus, light tent for traveling show" or "temporary light building for trade at a fair".
In Hebrew, "balagan" means "chaos". It's a loan word from Russian.
Besht (Sam's last name) is the common name by which the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, is known.
Main character Arkady Balagan mocks Hugo Lum, the hotel detective of the Vancouver hotel where the film is set, over his former career as a homicide detective. Patrick Gallagher, the actor who portrays Lum, portrayed a police officer in many episodes of another series set in Vancouver - Da Vinci's inquest. In the follow-on series Da Vinci's City Hall, he becomes a homicide detective.