Her father was Pavel Ivanovich Yamshanov (the Chief Engineer of a laboratory of the Uralmash plant), who had a rich library of art books and fiction.

She actively took part as an actress and an accompanist in student theatres of the University and Ural State Academy of Architecture and Arts.

She composed music and easily played in the piano, guitar and accordion that gave a nudge to the decision to study in the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire, but her mother made a requirement that Nadezhda should graduate the University first.

After graduation, according to the common Soviet practice, she was posted as a teacher of Russian to a remote village of Kunara, Sverdlovsk Oblast.

After her admission interview, Valentin Chernykh, one of the leaders of the courses, formulated his reluctance to take Nadezhda as: "She is a person with the character like Gennady Shpalikov, Vladimir Vysotsky, Oleg Dahl.

[4] In addition to Semyon Lungin, she studied under Valeri Frid, Merab Mamardashvili, Alexander Mitta, Paola Volkova.