In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, became a major migration hub for hundreds of thousands of Russians as they left their homeland. Drawn to the city’s reputation for beauty, free thought, and the arts, many young creatives decided to take up residence in the city, creating a rapidly evolving and wholly unique music scene. Among these were many members of the Russian Federation’s various ethnic minority groups, whose presence further contributedTbilisi’s diverse cultural and creative milieu. This paper explores the works of two of these musicians (one Buryat, one Circassian) as they grapple with the new realities of their lives in self-imposed exile. It builds on the author’s doctoral research and is derived from two years of ethnographic fieldwork (2023-2024) conducted in Tbilisi. Through a media-rich presentation accompanied with video documentation and theoretical visualizations, it provides an in-depth analysis of several of their individual works, allowing for a comparative study of how they adapt their respective folksongs to meet the challenges of their new context. While these two artists come from very different regions, lifestyles, religions, and political ideologies, the author demonstrates how both are grappling with the idea of folk heritage as something static (which keeps the artist rooted in a personally-meaningful past) and dynamic (which opens up new possibilities for the future and invites others to participate). These insights expand the wider ethnomusicological discussion of the interplay between innovation and tradition.