Aesthetic justification, phonetic research, living folklore, theatre of sound – such could be the tag cloud around the name of Nikifor Yakovlev. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory (composition classes of Vladimir Tarnopolsky and Yuri Kasparov), he was searching for his own style until his third year. According to the composer, for a long time his Yakut origins did not seem sufficient justification for working with his native folklore. Today, however, it is the Yakut language and folk heritage that underlie Nikifor Yakovlev’s principal opuses, among them the mono-opera Olonkhosut, which grew out of a piece that won the Art Theatre Prize. After the world premiere of the work, performed by the Studio for New Music and the tenor Sergey Malinin (N’Caged), Nikifor Yakovlev (NY) told Maria Nevidimova (MN) what prompted him to turn to his roots, how not to get lost in quasi-folk tinsel, and which of the composers who have worked with folk material did so most convincingly.