Remembering the Heroism of the Barricades: 35 Years of Baltic Independence

In January 1991 people flowed into the capitals of the Baltic states, including Rīga, and erected makeshift barricades around strategic locations including the parliament and the national broadcaster to protect them against Soviet troops that wanted to crush the Baltic nations' independence drive. At one point, around 700,000 demonstrators had gathered on the streets of Rīga in a remarkable show of solidarity and defiance. Flowers are traditionally laid by the Freedom Monument, at the Barricades square, Bastejkalns, the Meža cemetery, as well as by the former Interior Ministry building where the most brutal of the attacks by the Soviet special forces was carried out. A full programme of commemorative events is planned throughout the day in Rīga and other cities, as outlined in our earlier stories, and you will find plenty more features and accounts of the Barricades from previous years here. At a conference about the time of the Barricades, held at the Saeima on January 16th, Prime Minister Evika Siliņa recalled: "I was a teenager myself at the time. And now I pass on the memories to my children. For the first time I truly felt that there was something of ours that needed to be protected. It was cold. There were bonfires and it felt like we finally had our own country. And we were standing guard over it. Shoulder to shoulder. "We all knew that the barriers built with amazing speed would not be able to stop the tanks if they moved in. But the barricades showed something else – that spirit can be stronger than troops, that a people can stand like a wall. Not with weapons, but with determination." If you would like to learn more about those times, we recommend watching this short documentary film from LTV which provides an excellent overview.