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Russia’s youth have recently become the object of Western media interest with articles exploring everything from their support for President Vladimir Putin to their musical taste. Yet questions about Russia’s next generation remain largely understudied in Western academia (in contrast to its development in Russian scholarship), with only a handful of already dated analyses, a few studies on Russian students’ geopolitical visions, a couple of think tank reports, and a comparative book by Felix Krawatzek. The majority of these studies focus on interpreting the political role of Russia’s youth: for or against the Putin regime? Yet this politicization of our reading of young Russians misses the most interesting points: that one can be simultaneously for and against Putin, and that life is much more than formal political positions. First, Russia’s youth displays similar features to youth in other countries, chiefly its consumerism and social media savvy. Second, it is ambivalent on today’s Russia, both embracing it and taking critical distance from it. Third, the youth cultural scene—and especially the hip hop scene—is blossoming, becoming one of the most vivid contexts for expressing Russia’s evolving cultural norms and values.