On 23 August, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins will go to Koni municipality in the Valmiera district to take part, together with the Foreign Minister of Estonia, Urmas Paet, in a remembrance event devoted to the 20th anniversary of the Baltic Way. Participating in the event will be former activists of the Popular Front, the organisers of the Baltic Way campaign, as well as the local authority representatives.

The event in Koni municipality will include the unveiling of a memorial sign to the Baltic Way by metal artist Andris Dukurs – contours of seven human figures holding hands.

The Baltic Way took place on 23 August 1989, when the nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia surprised the world by joining hands in a human chain, over 600 km long, thus demonstrating their strong determination to reestablish the independence of the Baltic states.  The demonstration was held fifty years after the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. On 23 August 1939, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the treaty of non-aggression which affected the history of Europe and of the entire world over the years to come. The secret protocol to the treaty – the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – envisaged the division of Eastern Europe between Germany and the USSR, placing the Baltic states under the Soviet sphere of influence.

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