[1] In Russia, it has become a cult film, as most of its score consists of covers of 1980s and 1990s Russian rock music from bands such as Bravo, Nautilus Pompilius, Nol and the Red Elvises.

In 1955, a group of young Muscovite Komsomol (communist youth) students led by Katya intercepts illegal stilyagi gatherings in Gorky Park.

Perceived as "enemies of society", the stilyagi are forced to flee, with many of them getting caught and their clothing, ties or hair cut by the Komsomol for demonstrative purposes.

He then gets called into an alley by an imported goods dealer, who sends Mels to a former textile factory operator, now retired and making on demand clothes for "different" people (clandestinely).

Soon, Mels gets his new outfit prepared, turns a pair of regular shoes into high-platforms at his father's workplace factory, creates a compound to make his hair stay up, etc.

Mels then spends several nights listening to pirate radio from New York City trying to improvise the sound on the saxophone, but ends up faking it multiple times, until he is visited by the spirit of Charlie Parker who seemingly teaches him to play properly.

Since Fred has the most authority in terms of leader, he grants future leadership to Mels, creating a situation of disdain in other members and eventually arising tensions.

One night Polly meets drunk Mels at the bar and announces to him that she is pregnant with a child of an exchange African-American medical worker whom she met as intern and who was much older than her.

The next year, Polly gives birth to a dark-skinned baby boy, John, but Mels' family and neighbors in the communal apartment end up accepting him as their own, despite the differences.

Mels then tells Fred that most of the other members of their former gang moved on with their lives, with Bob eventually arrested and sent off to Siberia for buying illegal records from a smuggler, Dryn getting into the army, etc.

They share a bottle of Jack Daniel's, after which Fred promptly reveals to Mels that there are no stilyagi in the United States, and that he has never met there anyone living the same lifestyle, as such flamboyant behavior and such disrespect for the laws would have had them locked up in a mental asylum in mere minutes.

Appalled by this, Mels shouts at Fred, telling him to get lost, and rhetorically states to himself: "But we do exist..." The film ends with Mels performing a song (together with the remaining stilyagi) that draws parallels between his movement and that of the late 1980s "nonconformist" Soviet countercultures (such as rockers and punks, among others), the moral of which is the importance of remembering to always stand for the values one believes in, which in turn allows for any of these cultures to be remembered over time.

They were essentially the children of the stiliagi generation and similarly formed a counterculture.”[2] Stilyagi, or in their direct translation, “style hunters”, was a youth counterculture that emerged around the start of the Cold War.

In a repressed Soviet Union, rebellious youth and Russians feening for jazz and rock found out-of-the-box, innovative ways to score records: bootleggers pressed forbidden music on x-ray films.

They then cut the x-rays into a rudimentary circle and would reportedly burn a hole through the center using a cigarette, a process depicted in the opening scene of the movie.The records were distributed in the black market at very cheap prices with one disc costing as low as one ruble.

Bootleggers would travel as far south as Sochi to find source material to access through satellites, climbing high points to install antennas to key into Swiss radio and even stations like BBC.

In the early 60’s, the Komsomol (Leninist Young Communist League) pursued distributors and seized the bone records they found during their “anti-Western music patrols”.

[7] “The men sported quiffs and pencil moustaches and wore thick rubber-soled shoes, tight trousers and bright, gaudy shirts and ties”.

[7] The women were equally as well styled with “fifties-American inspired dresses, pant suits and high hairstyles, often accompanied by bright red lips”.

The website's critical consensus states,"Breezy, colorful, and suffused with joy, Hipsters offers audiences an engaging Cold War musical told from the other side of the Iron Curtain".