How are generations entangled differently in the problems facing rural places? Do place and age matter to the ways we understand revitalization? Sociologist Karl Mannheim noted that each generation establishes ‘fresh contact’ with social dilemmas, granting new perspectives on existing problems. This presentation explores why and how young, urban Bulgarians are addressing rural depopulation, and especially how recovery of traditional cultural practices plays into their endeavors. Their interventions—personal and civic—rely on peer networks, the reactivation of cultural memory, and resources beyond the village, choices that can create problems between villagers and newcomers even as they offer new platforms for rural communities to address pressing community needs. Attention to tactics of emplacement reveals presumptions about belonging and spatial tropes, not to mention (re)new(ed) sites of attention for folklorists and community-engaged scholars.