Stilyagi were members of a youth counterculture from the late 1940s until the early 1960s in the Soviet Union. A stilyaga was primarily distinguished by snappy clothing—preferably foreign-label, acquired from fartsovshchiks —that contrasted with the communist realities of the time, and a fascination with zagranitsa, modern Western music and fashions corresponding to those of the Beat Generation. English writings on Soviet culture variously translated the derogatory term as "dandies", "fashionistas", "beatniks", "hipsters", or "zoot suiters".

Ribs, also known as music on ribs, jazz on bones, bones or bone music (roentgenizdat), are improvised gramophone recordings made from X-ray films. Mostly made through the 1950s and 1960s, ribs were a black market method of smuggling in and distributing music that was banned from broadcast in the Soviet Union. Banned artists included emigre musicians, such as Pyotr Leshchenko and Alexander Vertinsky, and Western artists, such as Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Ella Fitzgerald and Chubby Checker.