It is early autumn 1994, I am travelling down the east coast of the Gulf of Ob in a tiny motor boat heading to the village of Nyda. We are shooting a documentary called "The Farewell Chronicle", part three in a trilogy about the Nenets.

The blowing wind turns into a storm and we must head for shore. Our sole shelter against the wind is provided by a small cape — which is actually more of a sand bank. On the bank, you can see the remains of a house and farther up some half-collapsed dugouts in which people used live.

In Stalin's days, a brigade of women was fishing here. They were enemies of the people and represented various ethnic backgrounds in the Soviet Union. Anastasia Lapsui teils me that her family hut was located right next to the camp with only a narrow stream separating the two camps from each other. Both camps were fishing on their own, fulfilling the plan. Fulfilling the plan was the duty of both the Nenets and the enemies of the people. Interaction between the camps was non-existent. The Nenets were scared of the camp dwellers — they were enemies of the people, after all. Anastasia Lapsui still vividly remembers a young fair-haired girl who used to come to their hut and sit by the doorway. She never entered, never said a word, just sat and watched the Nenets family go about their business, sobbing quietly. Then she went away. Her name and origin remained a secret forever.

Then one day the wind lost its power and we continued to the village of Nyda. An image of women on an arctic shore by the open sea was etched to my mind.

Anastasia Lapsui and I made several documentaries together in the 1990's but there was always something missing, something that was left unsaid. With documentaries, we have been prisoners of the moment. We figured that a feature could express more, be richer, more free. We decided to make one. Anastasia Lapsui wrote a number of legends and her own experiences into stories — stories that describe the life of the Nenets and other people in the region over a long period of time. We chase the ones that would be reasonable to produce, and that's how the screenplay for "Seven Songs from the Tundra" came to be.

The first and seventh song are documentary and the rest have been dramatised. The Nenets have no theatres, no professional actors, just common people, nomads, hunters and fishers. They all had a strong desire to help us and offer their homes, reindeer, boats and above all themselves and their time to our film.

In the film, a Nenets is played by a Nenets, the collective farm boss by the collective farm boss, the teacher by a teacher, they all appear as themselves. The people felt that the film was telling the story of their families, the history of who I am.

That is how the anthology "Seven Songs from the Tundra" was born.

"Seven Songs from the Tundra" is the first feature film in the Nenets language. The screenplay was written by a native Nenets and it was made into a film through the joint effort of the Nenets people. Thanks to all of them.