The former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Monday marked the 15th anniversary of the day their people formed a 600-kilometre (360-mile) human chain spanning three capitals in a sign of resistance to Moscow's rule.Separate events in the three Baltic states, which joined both the European Union and NATO this year, recalled how on August 23, 1989 two million people held hands from Vilnius through Riga to Tallinn, a year before the three satellites declared independence.
Estonian President Arnold Ruutel said in a statement after telephone talks with his Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Valdas Adamkus that the chain had demonstrated "the unity and strive for freedom of our peoples".
In Vilnius, Parliament Speaker Arturas Paulauskas compared the chain to the Lithuanian basketball team's victory against the United States at the Athens Olympic games on Saturday -- the sport is a national passion in Lithuania.
"They both unite the nation and raise spirits," Paulauskas said during the special parliament session, quoted by the Baltic News Agency.
The human chain -- known as the Baltic Way -- came 50 years after a pact between Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany divided Europe into different spheres of influence. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact handed the Baltic states to the Soviet Union.
The three states were formally recognised as independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, becoming part of NATO on March 29 this year, and joining the EU on May 1.
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