23 August 1989

The Baltic Way

On a late summer evening, nearly two million people joined hands to form an unbroken human chain stretching 675 kilometers across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It was a peaceful protest against Soviet occupation — and a quiet, defiant act of hope. Choose a city below to see how far that chain would reach from your own streets.

675 km2,000,000 people3 nations
Baltic Way participants standing along the road between Cēsis and Valmiera, Latvia, 23 August 1989.Participants of the Baltic Way holding candles and Lithuanian flags with black mourning ribbons.A segment of the human chain crossing the Green Bridge in Vilnius, Lithuania.Baltic Way participants stretched along the Vilnius–Ukmergė motorway in the Molėtai Region, Lithuania.
23 August 1989Between Cēsis and Valmiera, LatviaLaimonis Stīpnieks · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Pick any city — we'll draw a ~675km road route from there, the length of the Baltic Way.

Human chain
The Chain
Distance Covered
675km

Original Baltic Way: 675 km

People Needed
2,000,000

Original Baltic Way: 2,000,000

From

Tallinn, Estonia