Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Butkevičius and Prime Minister of Estonia Taavi Rõivas will take part in a series of events to commemorate the day in 1989 when hundreds of thousands of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians joined hands from Tallinn to Vilnius via Riga to protest the Soviet occupation of their countries, which resulted from the signing of the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact on August 23, 1939.
The Baltic Way provided a key symbolic moment, showing the Soviet authorities they had not cowed local desire for self-determination despite half a century of occupation.
The prime ministers will participate in the project "The Baltic Way Stories", and share their memories about the Baltic Way, while opening a recording studio of the new Latvian National Library.
Next they will attend a presentation of the Rail Baltica project that aims to join the three sates again via a high-speed rail link.
In the evening they will open an exhibition titled: "The Baltic Way – a Campaign in the Name of Freedom" before attending a concert devoted to the anniversary of the Baltic Way at the Freedom Monument.
The trio will round off their trip with a visit on Sunday morning to the new concert hall in the central Latvian town of Cēsis.
