Zakhar is 7 years old, and his brother Procopius is 9. Each of the brothers already has its own deer and its own tundra for wandering. Previously, children born into a nomad family at this age were almost forcibly taken away to study in a boarding school on the mainland. And they rarely returned to the parental home. Trying to preserve the traditions of the nomadic peoples in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the authorities decided to revive the practice of "nomadic schools" that disappeared in Russia in the 30s. That’s how the 23-year-old Nelli Andreevna falls into the Zharkov family in order to explain to Zakhar and Prokopy what a mathematician is needed in life and who Vladimir Putin is.

Deer Master

The Zharkov family-father, mother and two young sons-belong to the Dolgan community, one of the last indigenous peoples pursuing their traditional nomadic life in the extreme north of Siberia. The children used to be sent to boarding school, where they became estranged from their family and culture, but nowadays they can get homeschooling from teachers assigned to them by the Russian authorities. Seven-year-old Zakhar and his older brother Prokopy are the protagonists in this calm, observational film. Zakhar's first year of schooling is with Nelly, a young but serious teacher. She tells him about President Putin and the importance of mathematics, and he learns classical poems by heart.