Flowers were also placed on the memorials to the fallen municipal policemen, cameramen and student at the adjacent Bastejkalns canalside who lost their lives there during the Soviet special police force OMON shootouts in downtown Riga.
Later in the afternoon a memorial bonfire was lit by the Saeima building at Jēkaba street, where deputies and former participants in the barricades snacked on porridge and tea, remembering the events of January 1991.
Another bonfire was lit on Dom Square, where another series of commemorative events was scheduled starting at ten in the morning. But by six in the evening there weren’t that many people left assembled on the characteristically frigid heart of town.
January 20 is the commemoration date for the Barricade Days in January 1991 when people flowed into the capitals of the Baltic states and erected makeshift barricades around strategic locations like the parliament and the national radio to protect them against Soviet troops that wanted to crush the Baltic nations' independence drive.
