From Lithuania, with Love (2018)

What an interesting glimpse at a period that lives on the edge of my consciousness. I was 3 at that time, but I remember going to rallies with my parents a few years later. I also remember tanks and APCs parked all over Vilnius after the events of January 13th, 1991. The amount of respect, gratitude and admiration I feel for the people who drove the independence movement forward is difficult to describe.

And then, every once in a while I meet somebody from Russia or some other post-soviet state and hear them longing for those "long gone days" or ask me "is it really that much better for you now?".

It is. Much better. Sure, we have problems. Social and economical ones. But at least they are our problems. And we have the freedom to solve them on our own.

I'm surprised at the lack of mention of the human chain, which is the most famous act of protest on the 23 August:

"Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 675.5 kilometres (419.7 mi) across the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were considered at the time to be constituent republics of the Soviet Union."

A stark contrast with the article, which says "Only a few hundred people showed up".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way