His grandmother was from Bessarabia. Graduated from the First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg in 1974, Rosenbaum worked in the medical field for four years. His musical education consists of piano and choreography courses at a musical school. In 1968, while still a student, Rosenbaum started writing the songs for which he is famous. His early songs were for student plays, but he soon also wrote for rock groups and started performing as a singer-songwriter in 1983, sometimes under the pseudonym "Ayarov". Among his most famous songs are the ones about Leningrad, the Soviet-Afghan War, Cossacks, and Odessa. Songs such as "Gop-Stop" (a comedy about two gangsters executing an unfaithful lover) and "Vals-boston" (The Boston Waltz) are popular across Russian socialgroups and generations. Rosenbaum is an accomplished guitarist and accompanies himself on either a six- or twelve-string acoustic guitar, using the Open G tuning adopted from the Russian seven string guitar. Rosenbaum sometimes employs peculiar musical time signatures and patterns in his songs, striving to sound fresh and unique - a bit atypical for a songwriter that employs gangster and criminal slang elements in his lyrics. Though many of his songs are elaborate in their instrumentation, the stress is placed on the primary melodies of his songs and their messages, as is usually the case in bard music.