Intro - why I wrote this
As Latvia commemorates 23rd anniversary of barricades in Riga on January 1991st, I recognised that I barely noticed those events since barricades themselves. Maybe because January 1991st was so much natural for me then and since, that I felt about it almost like about landscape we grow up or air we breathe.
Reading my twitter stream around those days and checking out links to opinions, pictures, videos I understood that I don't exactly like everything what is appearing in social&media space. Therefore I decided to write down what I still remember myself, mainly about what I did, what I saw, what I thought about and a little bit how I felt about it.
Disclaimer
After reading myself what I have written here I must warn you that big part of it is my autobiography material. Leave now or enjoy :)
Background
If you want to have a background on whole barricade thing, you can check out Wikipedia. It is obvious that this Wikipedia article is written from the perspective of just one side of the barricades, view of majority of modern Latvia. I recognise that the other perspective(s) exist even thou some would like to think it doesn't. I have read and watched some of that material too and saw that it consists of basically the same type of information: hard facts, testimonies true and false, interpretations of above-mentioned, expression of opinions and feelings. I'll try give you mine here.
Even thou there is surprisingly little material on Internet about barricades, there still is enough to get some of the thing. Google it :)
My personal background? I was first year student of Latvia University at that time (faculty of Physics and Mathematics, specialty of Applied Mathematics, which later become Computer Sciences). 19 year old youth knowing everything better than anybody, learning, hanging and boozing around. If you are interested in "before", "why" or just me personally, then read this post about my life before USSR ended in 1991, very brief insight. But you can skip it, I'm basically describing my memories of myself for myself there.
Barricades
It was January 1991 and I was in the mid of my first exam session and I was serious about it.
There were news that force structures are conflicting between themselves. I don't remember those exactly, but the feeling of threat was around.
I don't remember exact circumstances how I got the message, but it was clear and final: Soviet military have made open action against independence of Baltic states in Vilnius, Lithuania, there are deaths among civilians, we can't fight military, but we can stand the watch, we can sing.
I remember manifestation on the bank of Daugava on January 13th. I haven't seen crowd of that size since. Later it was reported that there were 500 000 people there. I don't remember speeches given, I remember singing. Some of those songs I still can't sing without strong emotion, sometimes I simply can't sing them.
I have no record or exact memories of most of the time between then and the end of January except for the following. I'm a bit confused now because I remember so little. But I still have strong sense of awareness of what had to be done then and how it was done. Even thou there were organisation, somehow I had a strong feeling that everybody knows what has to be done deep inside themselves.
I have a record in my diary on January 17th, late at night: "I want to go and beat them, but we just don't do this. I was standing watch for two nights to 14th and 15th, then fell sick. I should have been there, but I wasn't. Tomorrow I have the hardest exam of the session in university. I will not be able to stand it if they will suppress us, I have to leave country in such case."
Seem that I have to dig for my exam log in archive if it still exists there, because now I'm hearing that schools were closed during that time. I don't remember that.
One day conductor of the brass band where I played trumpet called. Usually he called when we were needed for some off-schedule celebration. Or a few of us for playing for funeral service. It was neither, we went to television building to support those standing watch. We were called off quite soon after getting the message that it is becoming too dangerous. I don't remember why. Part of the band were youth, some even not 18. The memory is a bit misty, I have to dig for the date.
I remember my feelings after I watched news on shooting on January 20th. Mostly desperation, hatred, confusion, determination.
Btw, this is why I don't like when people are saying that Gvido Zvaigzne was killed on January 20th shooting. They were killing him and he was deadly injured. 4 persons were reported killed, which made feel desperation. Gvido Zvaigzne was reported seriously wounded. This gave some hope. When he died of injuries on February 5th it made more desperation and hate because of living through 20th once more. At least for me.
I'm really surprised that today there is still no actual clue for public record of what really happened on 20th...
I think that just a few people back then were not confused at some extent / on something. Maybe some of them we call heroes or enemies now, maybe some went unnoticed. But one is clear for me and a hard fact: majority wanted out of USSR, majority wanted to continue where Latvia left in 1940 politically. I wanted out of USSR physically and I wanted to continue Latvia's path symbolically.
I definitely know that those days changed something in me. Maybe it was the end of my teens. Maybe it happened later on in August when the chaos in USSR reached it's apogee. But that's another memories, another blog post maybe.
Final question
I rationalised what I already knew while writing this post. For me, somehow, the change of the political and economical system came during my teens. Almost precisely the same time period for state as for me becoming a grownup person. Sound's like a major coincidence. Do you believe in coincidences? I don't, at least in big ones, but for me it really was. Is it possible to not to live through your teens? No. Was it possible for Latvia not to change at that time? My answer is no.
PS
If you were patient enough to read this through and you have noticed I'm putting the hard facts wrong, give me a message. Mostly I'm asking my friends, relatives and peers about what we did together during those days. I'm most definitely NOT willing to start a political discussion on this post and I won't, comments disabled for this post, you can express yourselves in twitter or facebook :P
