Pictures and documents about the Freedom Chain staged by the Baltic states in 1989 were presented in Chisinau at an open-air exhibition entitled “Baltic way – event in the name of freedom”, IPN reports.
Vita Dobele, ad-interim charge d’affaires of the Embassy of Latvia, said the Baltic Chain, called also the Baltic Way or Chain of Freedom, was a peaceful political demonstration held on August 23, 1989, exactly 50 years of the signing of the Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact, to remind about the consequences of this agreement. After its signing, the Baltic states lost their sovereignty for a period of half a century.
In 1989, approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 675 kilometers across the three Baltic states – Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR, republics of the Soviet Union. By this human chain, the capitals of the three states were connected. The chain started in Tallinn, went through Riga and ended in Vilnius.
The exhibit contains photographs and documents from the state archives of the three states. Meldra Usenko, expert at the National Archive of Latvia, said the human chain helped disseminate the cause of the Baltic peoples all over the world and symbolized solidarity between people. The event was organized during two months, each meter of land on which the people joined their hand being calculated. Practically all the families from the three Baltic states include by a member who took part in that event of 1989.
The exhibition in Chisinau was staged by the Embassy of Latvia in Moldova. It was also mounted in Riga and Tallinn, while in August it will reach Vilnius too.
