Zurbu

A good place to collect, organize, share, and preserve knowledge on things you care about.

One communityā€Šā€”ā€Šmultiple thematic projects.

Take a look at some of them:

1201:future

Riga is not ready (but at least it tries). City development updates and ideas.

1201:past

History of Riga. The project where it all started.

Valmiera

Exploring history of Valmiera, Latvia. Managed by the town's local history museum.

Projects are made of notes.

From one-liners to long reads, here are the latest ones:

www.lsm.lv/raksts/zinas/latvija/11.07.2025-ar-pirmajiem-ligumiem-latvija-saks-plasus-rail-baltica-dzelzcela-pamattrases-buvdarbus.a606520

Ar pirmajiem lÄ«gumiem Latvijā sāks plaÅ”us Ā«Rail BalticaĀ» dzelzceļa pamattrases bÅ«vdarbus

2025-07-11T13:00:00+00:00

Dzelzceļa projekta "Rail Baltica" ieviesējs Latvijā ā€“ uzņēmums "Eiropas Dzelzceļa lÄ«nijas" (EDzL) ā€“ un pamattrases bÅ«vnieks "ERB Rail" parakstÄ«juÅ”i aktu par plaÅ”a mēroga bÅ«vdarbu uzsākÅ”anu "Rail Baltica" pamattrasē, informēja EdzL.

Write text, add links, upload images and documentsā€Šā€”ā€Šnotes are the basic units of information here.

And itā€™s all about organizing your stream of notes.

Remember that old photo someone posted a few years ago? How do I find it now? Never mind, here it is.

Tags

The main tool for organizing notesā€Šā€”ā€Šbut wait, you can tag other tags, too! Tag pages show content which is explicitly tagged with child tags, too. Whatā€™s more, data marked as geographically located inside is also shown.

  • Can be tagged
  • Can have locations
  • Can have milestones
  • Can have references
  • Can be added to boards

Notepads

Useful for collecting and highlighting notes. Find them listed on project main pages.

  • Can have custom URLs

Boards are the to-do lists here.

Imagine tags with tasks

And just like with tags, you can add same item to multiple boards.

Make them public or fine-tune the permissions

Choose whether to reveal the very existence of each board, and grant permissions to configure themā€Šā€”ā€Šor even edit every item added.

Hide items until polished to perfection

Optionally

Boards can be configured to hide added items from people without access to them. Looking for a drafts or trash folder? Look no further!

Itā€™s especially useful if your knowledge fits on a map.

But thatā€™s not required.

ā€¦ and expect more geography to come.

Preserve your knowledge.

Your efforts deserve to be safeguarded.

Every day, well-structured ZIP files with all text data and uploads are generated for each project.

Project owners can make them public or keep to themselves.

Configure your project.

Make it meet your needs.

Choose who can post

Switch anytime

Be the only narrator, select your co-authorsā€Šā€”ā€Šor let the world join the discussion!

Choose your licence

Protect your findings or let the world copy them like Wikipedia articlesā€Šā€”ā€Šthe choice is yours!

Add your own domain

Optionally

Build your brand. Hopefully you choose to stayā€Šā€”ā€Šbut if you donā€™t, your audience will follow you.

Start your project

Built with enthusiasm and experience.

Zurbu wasn't built in a day.

2001
A school project on 800th anniversary of Riga evolves into a popular blog on history and sights of the city.
2004
An old-school forum is added to the blog. People start talking.
2009
Zurbu, a moonshot at creating blogs and forums for local history enthusiasts worldwide, is launched. Old blog articles get migrated there.
2024
Finally, the current version of Zurbu appears. Rewritten from scratch, with all the existing data and new content, and an ambitious goal of providing like-minded people a convenient and safe space for the things they care about.

Whoā€™s behind it?