More than 4,600 non-academic music groups emerged in the USSR and post-Soviet independent nations in 1960–2015, performing in 275 genres and sub-genres, including rock, pop, disco, jazz, and folk. Some of the groups became legends and survived for decades, while others vanished and are known now only to select music history scholars and fans. The total number of unique performers in all groups exceeds 17,000, and at least 3,600 of them participated in more than one project.