In an old building in Moscow which once housed the Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT), a faceless dramatic organization called the Theatre of Nations is accommodated. Two years ago Yevgeny Mironov was appointed as artistic director of the theater. He belongs to the MKhAT drama school and at only 42 he is already famous as a great actor – in Russia such recognition within one's lifetime is not uncommon. He has played Prince Myshkin in The Idiot, Khlestakov in The Inspector General and many other roles where the audience could identify with the Russian characters. Having become artistic director, Mironov invited Alvis Hermanis, the head of the New Riga Theatre, to stage a production. Hermanis is a theater director raised on Russian literature, and has more than once turned to it in his productions but has never worked with Russian actors before.

"I realized that I need to choose some very Russian material which would add to my own understanding of the people. I remembered the films by Shukshin that I had watched as a child. I started reading his short stories and was fascinated by their simplicity and wisdom," Hermanis said.

He selected a cast which, apart from Mironov and others, includes the brightest and most talented actress of the 30-something generation, Chulpan Khamatova. Together they traveled to Altay, Shukshin's birthplace, to become acquainted with the characters in Shukshin's stories. The stage designer, photographer and Hermanis' partner Monika Pormale created portraits of the Altay people. These portraits now silently stare at the house from the stage, but the actors are not copying these people, they are not imitating their speech or manners. They simply play characters in a Russian village, the remaining residents of a modern megapolis. In the play the two worlds meet each other, but without sacrificing their own identity they discover they have much in common. They say in Russia that there is no one subject that can bring together individual spectators into a single audience. Surprisingly, it is a foreigner who has spotted the theme.