On August 23, Lithuania commemorated the anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact that divided Eastern Europe on the eve of World War II. August 23 is marked in the country as the European Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism and in memory of the great expression of Baltic freedom in 1989, Baltic Way Day.
On this occasion, the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania organized the first “Memory Trail” bicycle tour in Vilnius. It started at the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Struggles in Vilnius, next to the Monument to the Victims of the Soviet Occupation. Before that an exhibition was opened, dedicated to the Soviet mass repressions of 1939 and 1941 in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine. After visiting the former Lukiškės Prison, participants finished their march at the Tuskulėnai Memorial.
Special concerts were held in Kaunas, Klaipėda and many other municipalities to mark Baltic Way Day, together with a variety of other events. Some municipalities also expressed solidarity with Ukraine.
On August 23, 1989, on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, about two million Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians joined hands in a protest called the Baltic Way, forming a living human chain stretching for more than 650 km from the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius to the Hermann Tower in Tallinn.
