Baltic Way

A precurs- a, a precursor was, um, um, a human chain of two million people was made, um, where they held hands across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

They called it the Baltic Way, and it became, like, one of the most powerful, peaceful protests of the 20th century, and it showed the Soviet government and the rest of the world the enormous numbers of people in all three of those Baltic republics who wanted freedom from Soviet rule.

Aw.

Wow.

Person is not here.

Oh, my God.

You didn't know about the Baltic Way.

You're not here.

How wild is that? People standing beside people, beside people across three countries.

It became known as the Baltic Way.

It was an organized, peaceful demonstration built around and shared demand for freedom and self-determination.

They weren't trying to erase Estonian identity or Latvian identity or Lithuanian identity.

They were using collective strength to protect those identities.

The Baltic Way wasn't one magical event that single-handedly brought down the Soviet rule.

History doesn't work like that.

It did become one of the defining demonstrations of the Baltic independence movements.

For Westerners, I think this is kind of a well-established repertoire of action that when people hold hands silently, peacefully on the street, they know that they were trying to do something.

So what happened in Hong Kong was on August 23, 2019, and it happened to be the 30th anniversary of Baltic Way, which connects three Baltic states.

At that time, three Baltic states were still part of the Soviet Union, but they were trying to striving for more autonomy.

So they just incorporate that and designating a route over 20 kilometers.