About two million people joined hands for fifteen minutes and formed a human chain of about 675 km, from Tallinn through Rīga to Vilnius. It marked 50 years since the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, whose secret protocols divided the region between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The Baltic Way, stop by stop

Tallinn. In Estonia the chain was organized by the Popular Front, Rahvarinne, and the day was declared a public holiday. At 19:00 Estonian Radio went live from Toompea, beside the Tall Hermann tower, where the Estonian flag had flown since 24 February 1989.
Rapla – Türi. The Estonian stretch was first planned through Pärnu. In early August the route was changed to run inland, through Rapla, Türi and Viljandi. Monuments to the Baltic Way at Käru and Särevere were unveiled a few hours before the chain formed.
Viljandi. From 17:00 Estonian Radio ran a three-hour live program, “Meie hoiame ühte” (We Hold Together): songs, poems, reports from along the route and traffic news. Many people stood with portable radios. Along the Estonian section, the word “Freedom” was passed from mouth to mouth.
Estonian–Latvian border. Leaders of the Estonian and Latvian Popular Fronts gathered at the border, where a giant black cross was set alight. After the chain, many people came here, between Nuia and Rūjiena, to burn slogans of the totalitarian regimes in bonfires.
Valmiera. In Latvia the chain was organized by the Popular Front of Latvia, which estimated that about 400,000 Latvians took part.
Cēsis – Sigulda. Free buses took people to their assigned stretch of road. Some employers sponsored them; others refused to give workers the day off. Footage filmed from airplanes and helicopters showed an almost continuous line of people across the countryside.
Rīga. The chain crossed Rīga, the middle link between the three capitals. Two years earlier, on 23 August 1987, people had laid flowers at the Freedom Monument on the anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and the crowd was dispersed.
Ķekava – Iecava – Bauska. South of Rīga the chain followed the Via Baltica road through Ķekava, Iecava and Bauska towards Lithuania.
Latvian–Lithuanian border. In Lithuania the chain was organized by Sąjūdis. The Lithuanian section was about 220 km long.
Pasvalys – Panevėžys. Estimates of the turnout varied. Reuters reported about 1,000,000 Lithuanians and 700,000 Estonians; organizers had expected 1,500,000 people in all.
Ukmergė – Širvintos. The last stretch followed the A2 highway through Ukmergė and Širvintos and into Vilnius along Ukmergės Street. Airplanes flew over the chain to help coordinate it.
Vilnius. The chain ended at Gediminas Castle Tower, where the Lithuanian flag had flown again since 7 October 1988. About 5,000 people gathered in Cathedral Square with candles.

Timeline

16.02.1918: Lithuania declares independence in Vilnius.
24.02.1918: The Republic of Estonia is proclaimed in Tallinn. The date is still Estonia’s Independence Day.
18.11.1918: Latvia declares independence in Rīga.
23.08.1939: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. A secret protocol divides Eastern Europe between them and places the Baltic states in the Soviet sphere.
06.1940: After Soviet ultimatums on 15 and 16 June, the Red Army occupies all three countries. In August 1940 they are annexed into the USSR.
14.06.1941: The first mass deportations take place in all three countries on the same day. About 45,000 people are taken from the Baltic states to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union, and many of the men are sent to prison camps.
1941–1944: Nazi Germany occupies the region after invading the Soviet Union.
1944: As the Red Army returns, people flee west by small boat to Sweden or overland to Germany. By the end of the war about 300,000 have left the three countries: around 80,000 from Estonia and 60,000–70,000 from Lithuania, and by early 1945 about 170,000 Latvians are in refugee camps in Germany. After years in the camps, many settle in Sweden, the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia, where they build the Baltic diaspora.
25.03.1949: Operation Priboi deports about 95,000 people from the three countries in a few days, most of them rural families.
23.08.1987: On the anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, people gather at Hirvepark in Tallinn, the Freedom Monument in Rīga and the Adam Mickiewicz monument in Vilnius to demand that the secret protocols be made public.
03.06.1988: Sąjūdis, the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is founded in Vilnius.
06.1988: Night song festivals at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds give the movement its name: the Singing Revolution.
23.08.1988: A mass rally in Vingis Park, Vilnius, condemns the pact on its anniversary.
11.09.1988: “Eestimaa laul” (Song of Estonia) gathers a vast crowd, often put at 300,000, at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. A speaker calls openly for the restoration of independence.
10.1988: The Popular Front of Estonia (Rahvarinne) holds its founding congress on 1 October, and the Popular Front of Latvia (Tautas fronte) on 8–9 October.
16.11.1988: Estonia’s Supreme Soviet adopts the Sovereignty Declaration, putting Estonian laws above Soviet ones.
24.02.1989: On Independence Day morning the blue-black-white flag is raised on Tall Hermann tower in Tallinn.
12.08.1989: At Lenči, near Cēsis, the three movements take their final joint decisions on the Baltic Way and adopt the Cēsis Communiqué. The meeting place is kept secret.
23.08.1989: The Baltic Way: about two million people join hands for 15 minutes from 19:00, along about 675 km from Tallinn through Rīga to Vilnius.
26.08.1989: A Communist Party Central Committee statement read on Soviet television denounces “nationalist, extremist groups” and warns of “catastrophic” consequences. The next day it runs on the front page of Pravda. The threats are not carried out.
24.12.1989: The USSR Congress of People’s Deputies admits the secret protocols existed and declares them invalid from the moment of signing.
11.03.1990: Lithuania restores its independence, the first Soviet republic to do so.
1990: Estonia (30 March) and Latvia (4 May) declare a transition to restored independence.
13.01.1991: Soviet forces storm the Vilnius TV Tower. Fourteen unarmed civilians are killed. The same day, people in Rīga start building barricades around key buildings.
20.01.1991: In Rīga, OMON special police attack the Latvian Ministry of the Interior. Two police officers, two cameramen and a 17-year-old schoolboy die of their wounds. People keep guarding the barricades until about 27 January.
20.08.1991: During the coup attempt in Moscow, Estonia restores its independence. Latvia follows on 21 August.
06.09.1991: The Soviet government recognizes the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1993–1994: The last Russian troops leave Lithuania on 31 August 1993, and Estonia and Latvia on 31 August 1994.
2004: The three countries join NATO on 29 March and the European Union on 1 May.
2009: 38 documents of the Baltic Way are added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. The European Parliament makes 23 August a day of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
02.07.2013: A Baltic Way alley opens at the European Parliament in Brussels, with a plaque honoring Europe’s longest human chain.
11.09.2013: Inspired by the Baltic Way, about 1.6 million people form the Catalan Way, some 400 km across Catalonia.
23.08.2019: On the 30th anniversary, the Hong Kong Way stretches about 50 km across the city. Organizers estimate 210,000 people.

Behind the scenes

Facts compiled for this project by Anna Zeibārte, head of the Popular Front Museum at the Latvian National History Museum.

How it was prepared

The final joint decisions were taken on 12 August at Lenči in Raiskums parish, near Cēsis. The meeting place was kept secret: activists from Cēsis guided the delegations there along different country roads to cover their tracks.
Three movements organized the Baltic Way together in less than six weeks: Rahvarinne in Estonia, the Popular Front of Latvia and Sąjūdis in Lithuania.
The Latvian action group, about ten people, was led by Sandra Kalniete.
Popular Front of Latvia branches in the Bauska, Rīga, Cēsis and Valmiera districts divided their sections kilometer by kilometer. Every kilometer, and every 100 meters, had a person in charge.
People from Kurzeme and Zemgale were sent to the Bauska section, and people from Vidzeme and Latgale to the Cēsis and Valmiera sections.
In Cēsis district, the newspaper “Padomju Druva” printed which branches would stand at each kilometer.
Activists from Liepāja traveled to the Bauska section. Red-white-red flags were sewn in secret at the “Lauma” haberdashery factory.
Where there were too few people, gaps were to be bridged with flags, belts or even jacket sleeves.
News spread through the newspaper “Atmoda”, transistor radios and shortwave amateur radio. The Popular Front of Latvia’s information center was run by Sarmīte Ēlerte.
The Cēsis Communiqué planned more: in Estonia, the word “Freedom” would be passed from person to person along the chain; in Latvia, signatures would be collected for a special appeal; and rallies would be held at Latvia’s borders with Estonia and Lithuania.
The Cēsis meeting also discussed what to do if the Soviet Army or the KGB staged provocations.
The appeal adopted in Cēsis, “The Baltic Way – a road to the liberation of Europe’s last colonial territory”, was partly published in the newspaper “Padomju Jaunatne” and sent abroad by fax.
In Lithuania, about 60,000 cars took people to their places along the chain.

The radio ban and last-minute drama

A live Latvian Radio broadcast was meant to guide people to their places and steer the traffic. District coordinators had been told to switch on their car radios at a set time.
On the morning of 23 August, Ivars Ķezbers, secretary of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party, banned the broadcast. Only a pre-recorded ten-minute address was allowed.
With the live broadcast gone, Dainis Īvāns had to foresee, two hours ahead, what people would need to do. Journalist Normunds Beļskis helped him record the speech, which went on air at 19:00.
After recording, Īvāns drove to the Latvian–Estonian border for a large rally. He could barely hear his own speech: Marju Lauristin was speaking on Estonian Radio in one ear, and his own voice came from Latvian Radio in the other.
Sandra Kalniete and Jānis Škapars got stuck in a traffic jam near Ķekava and lived through the historic moment pressed against a truck carrying cows.
The chain was broken only at railway crossings. There were no incidents, and no one was hurt.
For 15 minutes, the roadside pub “Sēnīte” on the Sigulda highway had no customers at all.
Estonia declared the day of the Baltic Way a public holiday.
Estonian Radio ran a special three-hour program during the event, with songs, poetry, reports from along the route and information for participants.

Reaction and impact

Watching the Baltic Way on the news, Gorbachev reportedly told his adviser Anatoly Chernyaev that the Balts could not be won back: “they are leaving”.
According to Īvāns, US President George H. W. Bush then wrote to Gorbachev, urging caution and restraint on the Baltic and Polish questions.
On 24 August 1989, The New York Times quoted a woman from Tallinn who had come to the chain with her seven-year-old twin sons.
Sandra Kalniete has said that after the Baltic Way, the West no longer saw small groups of nationalists, but whole nations wanting their freedom back.
The length is often given as 600 km in Latvian sources; the American press in 1989 also reported 370 miles (about 595 km).
On 26 August, three days after the chain, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party adopted a sharply worded statement on the Baltic republics. On 27 August it ran on the front page of Pravda, accusing the Baltic movements of stirring up nationalist hysteria and warning of catastrophic consequences if they reached their aims.
On 29 August the statement was also printed in the Latvian newspaper “Padomju Jaunatne”. In reply, the Popular Front of Latvia’s Council Board and deputies of the Latvian SSR Supreme Council issued their own statement, “To the People of Latvia”, calling for unity and urging people not to give in to provocations.
The Baltic Way helped the world understand the Baltic nations’ wish for independence, and drew attention around the world to the secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

The Popular Front Museum and the Baltic Way

Everything about the Baltic Way in Latvia was planned and agreed at Vecpilsētas iela 13/15 in Rīga, then the headquarters of the Popular Front of Latvia.
The museum holds the white sweater with an embroidered Latvian coat of arms that Īvāns wore on the Baltic Way. A Latvian exile in Canada had given it to him, and it came to the museum on the Popular Front’s 28th anniversary.
The manuscript of Īvāns’s Baltic Way speech turned up years later in the attic of his country house, and he gave it to the museum. The original recording had not survived in the Latvian Radio archive, so in summer 2019, for the 30th anniversary, the speech was recorded again from the manuscript at the National Library of Latvia’s sound studio.
Īvāns later said the Baltic Way succeeded in Latvia thanks to people’s enthusiasm and the strong self-discipline and organizing skill of the Popular Front’s local branch leaders.
On 30 July 2009, the documentary heritage of the Baltic Way was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. The nomination, “The Baltic Way – Human Chain Linking Three States in Their Drive for Freedom”, was prepared jointly by specialists from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
On 2 July 2013, a Baltic Way alley was opened at the European Parliament in Brussels, with a plaque honoring Europe’s longest human chain.

From the archive

A placard in Estonia: “End the occupation of Estonia”. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Holding hands along the road in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Waiting by the road with the Estonian flag. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
“Half a century of the MRP, half a century of slavery.” MRP is the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
“Smile. No pact lasts long.” (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Men carry placards along a country road in Estonia. One begins “Nõuame…” (“We demand…”). (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The chain across open fields in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Women hold hands by the roadside in Estonia, beside a parked car and a hand-lettered banner. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
At the 10th kilometer of the Cēsis–Valmiera road. (Laimonis Stīpnieks, CC BY-SA 4.0)
On the Rīga–Pskov highway near Ropaži. (Valdis Vīksne, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Young people at the foot of the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
At the foot of the Freedom Monument in Rīga, women hold up portraits of young men and a question mark. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A woman lays flowers at the foot of the Freedom Monument in Rīga as a crowd gathers. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A banner in English in Rīga: “49 years … occupation of Baltic states – shame on the world civilization.” (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
On the Rīga–Bauska highway near Ķekava. (Uldis Pinka, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A road sign in the Pasvalys district of Lithuania: 110 km to Rīga, 421 km to Tallinn. (Kusurija, CC BY-SA 3.0)
An event in Panevėžys on today’s Freedom Square, then Lenin Square. (Jonas Ambraška, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Buses and cars on the Vilnius–Panevėžys highway, heading to their assigned places. (Antanas Gylys, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Near Širvintos, Lithuania. (Radvilė Morkūnaitė, CC BY-SA 4.0)
An An-2 airplane over the chain. Airplanes helped coordinate it and were used to photograph and film it. (Janina Kafemanaitė-Lesickienė, CC BY-SA 4.0)
At the Green Bridge in Vilnius. (Jonas Kernagis, Lithuanian State Central Archives, CC BY 4.0)
Candles and Lithuanian flags with black ribbons of mourning, as published in Moteris magazine. (L. Vasauskas, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The traffic jam afterwards, as people drove back to Panevėžys. (Petras Kareckas, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A banner across the road: “Eestimaa eestimaalastele” (Estonia for the people of Estonia). (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Arms outstretched along the road in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Holding hands under a banner, against the low evening sun. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A line of people holding hands across open country in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A bus parked by the road, and the Estonian flag. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Placards beside a bus in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Holding hands under the trees, with Estonian flags. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Waving from a car in Estonia. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A crowd at the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flowers at the foot of the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flags in front of the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The chain on Lenin Street, today’s Brīvības iela, in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Holding hands in the Pasvalys district of Lithuania, under a black flag. (Rimantas Lazdynas, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The chain along a road in the Pasvalys district of Lithuania. (Rimantas Lazdynas, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Near Maišiagala, about 22 km from Vilnius. The photographer came here with his family. (Gasparas Genzbigelis (Europeana 1989), CC BY-SA 3.0)
On the Vilnius–Ukmergė highway, in the Molėtai area. (Saulius Gruodis, Lithuanian State Central Archives, CC BY 4.0)
The chain on the highway in Vilnius. (Vladas Ščiavinskas, Lithuanian State Central Archives, CC BY 4.0)
Estonian flags by the road, and the placard “Smile. No pact lasts long.” (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Families with flags walk along the road to their place in the chain. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Placards by the road: “Moscow! Hands off the Baltics!” and “End the occupation of the Baltic states.” (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A boy by the road, with a banner stretched across the chain behind him. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Waiting by the road with the placard “End the occupation of Estonia”. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flags above the crowd on the Estonian stretch. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Raising the flag over the road. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A flag-bearer and a truck by the road in open country. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
An old Soviet car flying the Estonian flag. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Two women with flags in open country. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Placards marking 50 years since the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A father with two small children and the Estonian flag. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flowers laid by the Freedom Monument in Rīga on 23 August 1989. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flags and speakers at the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A painted banner caricaturing Hitler, Stalin and their 1939 pact, raised above the crowd near the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
“Nost okupāciju!” (Down with the occupation!) on Brīvības bulvāris in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The chain along Brīvības bulvāris in Rīga. (Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Šeškinė hill in Vilnius. The girl in front is the photographer’s daughter, Neringa. (Gediminas Krunglevičius, CC BY-SA 3.0)
At the corner of J. Basanavičiaus and Vilniaus streets in Vilnius. (Eglė Zubienė (Europeana 1989), CC BY-SA 3.0)
The chain in Panevėžys. (Jonas Ambraška, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Raised hands and Lithuanian flags in the chain. (Kusurija, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The chain at Šilagalys, in the Panevėžys district. (Vanda Mačiekienė (Europeana 1989), CC BY-SA 3.0)
An An-2, the type of biplane that dropped flowers on the chain in Lithuania. Photographed in Lithuania in 2019. (Terminator216, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Footprints set in the pavement on Harjumägi hill in Tallinn’s Old Town: “Balti kett · Baltic Way · Tallinn – Riga – Vilnius”. (Yamen, CC BY-SA 4.0)
23 August 2009: candles mark a symbolic Baltic Way to the Freedom Monument in Rīga. (J. Šeduikis (Europeana 1989), CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Estonian flag is raised on Tall Hermann tower in Tallinn on the morning of 24 February 1989. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Crowds on Toompea in Tallinn, 24 February 1989. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A night song festival at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, 1988. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Flags on stage at a night song festival in Tallinn, 1988. (Jaan Künnap, CC BY-SA 4.0)
A rally in Vingis Park, Vilnius, condemning the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1988. (Lithuanian Central State Archives, CC BY 4.0)
Members of Sąjūdis in Vilnius, 23 October 1988. (Lithuanian State Modern Archives, CC BY 4.0)
An unarmed man faces a Soviet tank in Vilnius on the night of 13 January 1991. (Andrius Petrulevičius, Lithuanian Central State Archives, CC BY 4.0)
The funeral of Roberts Mūrnieks in Rīga on 19 January 1991. The driver was shot on 16 January, one of the victims of the January attacks in Rīga. (Tomasz Kizny, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Hong Kong Way on 23 August 2019, the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way. (Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0)
Section 235 of the Catalan Way, 11 September 2013. (Clara Polo Sabat, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources: Estonian History Museum: The Baltic Way, ERR archive: “Meie hoiame ühte”, Estonian Radio, 23 August 1989, Wikipedia: Baltic Way, Vabamu: Balti kett, lithuania.lt: The Baltic Way from Vilnius to Tallinn, UNESCO Memory of the World: The Baltic Way, Wikimedia Commons: Baltic Way photographs

The Baltic Way: the whole story on one page · Balti kett: kogu lugu ühel lehel

The Baltic Way

Your place on the chain