The Barricades

• 1. Introduction

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  The Barricades of 1991 began with a radio broadcast at 4:45 in the morning on the 13th of January. A voice from Latvian radio called people to gather in Riga Cathedral Square. By midday, around 700,000 people had come. Soviet helicopters circled overhead and dropped leaflets with warnings into the crowd below.

  Latvia had declared the restoration of its independence from the Soviet Union on the 4th of May 1990. Moscow refused to accept that declaration. In January 1991, with Soviet troops and OMON units already stationed in the country, the question was not whether a confrontation was coming but what form it would take. What followed was two weeks of barricades, bonfires, and bloodshed in the middle of a Baltic winter. Six people would be killed. Around 32,000 would later receive medals for their part in defending them.

• 2. Roots of the Standoff

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  Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of 1985, glasnost and perestroika, were intended to rescue a failing Soviet economy. They did something else entirely. By lifting restrictions on political speech, the reforms exposed crimes of the Soviet regime that had been kept secret for decades. Public dissatisfaction deepened further after the Chernobyl disaster began in April 1986, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan wore on the country's trust in Moscow.

  In Latvia, the independence movement found its electoral footing on the 18th of March 1990, when the Popular Front of Latvia, the Latvian Green Party and the Latvian National Independence Movement won elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR. Together they formed the Popular Front faction, pushing a pro-Soviet bloc called the Equal Rights faction into opposition.

  The tension sharpened through the rest of 1990. A series of bombings struck in December. Marshal Dmitry Yazov later admitted Soviet military responsibility for the first four. On the 20th of December, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze resigned and stated openly that a dictatorship was coming. That same month, a large KGB combat group was exposed in the Latvian coastal town of Jūrmala. The Popular Front responded by publishing detailed instructions for the public, telling people what to do when the Soviet crackdown, which they called hour X, arrived.

• 3. Early Provocations

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  On the 2nd of January 1991, OMON forces seized the Preses Nams, the national printing house of Latvia. Officers from the criminal police who had come to document the seizure were attacked. The Supreme Council learned that the building's manager was being held hostage. Workers were verbally and physically abused before being released. The printing house continued to function, but only to produce pro-Soviet publications.

  Two days later, on the 4th of January, OMON troops seized a telephone exchange in the Vecmīlgrāvis district of Riga. The same day they took the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Both Boris Pugo and Gorbachev denied knowing about these operations. Meanwhile, a Soviet intelligence unit arrived in Riga that same day.

  By the 11th of January, the Military Council of the Baltic Military District had decided to arm Soviet officers and cadets with machine guns. Armored vehicles moved openly through Riga's streets. An Interfront rally drew some 50,000 people, and some in the crowd, at the urging of military personnel, tried to storm the Cabinet of Ministers building. That same day, Soviet forces launched an attack across the border in Latvia's neighbor Lithuania, striking the Vilnius TV Tower and killing 13 civilians.

• 4. Building and Defending

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  The construction of the barricades began on the evening of the 13th of January and took about three hours. Agricultural machinery, trucks loaded with logs, large concrete blocks, wire obstacles and demolition waste were all used. The main objectives to be protected included the Supreme Council buildings near St. James's Cathedral, the Council of Ministers near the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ, Latvian Television on Zaķusala island, Latvian Radio near Riga Cathedral, the international telephone exchange, the Ulbroka radio station and the city's bridges. Barricades also went up in Liepāja and Kuldīga.

  The people who came to guard these positions were not all soldiers. They included colleagues and students, families, the elderly and children. Many had traveled from across the country. Barricades were understood mainly as a form of nonviolent resistance, with people ready to form a human shield. Some did bring improvised weapons, pieces of metal and handmade shields. Others had prepared Molotov cocktails, but these were confiscated on fire-safety grounds. The Latvian militia was armed with sub-machine guns and handguns.

  About 300 foreign journalists were working in Riga at the time, and the Latvian government made sure they received constant updates. This was by design. Many of the strategic sites being protected were communications facilities, and the goal was clear: hold these positions long enough to inform the rest of the world. Latvian radio and television broadcast without interruption throughout the two weeks. Radio was used to coordinate food, sleep, and shifts. Foresters supplied firewood for the bonfires. Schools were turned into rest areas. Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis met regularly with commanders of individual barricades to discuss tactics.

• 5. The Deadliest Night

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  Roberts Mūrnieks, a driver for the Latvian Ministry of Transport, was shot in the back of the head with an automatic weapon at 4:45 pm on the 16th of January during an OMON attack on the Vecmilgrāvis bridge. He died at intensive care at 6:50 pm that same evening, becoming the first fatality at the barricades. Two others were wounded in that same attack.

  The worst night came four days later. On the evening of the 20th of January, OMON forces and other unidentified combat groups attacked the Latvian Interior Ministry. Two policemen, Vladimirs Gomanovičs and Sergejs Konoņenko, camera operator and film director Andris Slapiņš, and 17-year-old schoolboy Edijs Riekstiņš were all killed. Gvido Zvaigzne was fatally wounded in the assault and died of his injuries on the 5th of February. Among the injured were four policemen from Bauska, five barricade participants, a Hungarian named János Tódor, Finnish journalist and TV operator Hannu Väisänen, and Vladimir Brezhnev, a Russian camera operator for the TV program Vzglyad.

  That same evening, in Moscow, around 100,000 people had gathered to show solidarity with the Baltic states, calling on Soviet officials to resign over the events in Vilnius. After the battle at the Ministry of Interior, the OMON moved into the Latvian Communist Party building. Another person was killed on the barricades on the 22nd of January. After the funerals for the 20th of January victims on the 25th of January, the defenders of the barricades left their positions.

• 6. Questions of Responsibility

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  The attacks were carried out primarily by the Riga OMON, but a second, unidentified combat unit was observed during the assault on the Interior Ministry. Investigators speculated it may have been the Alpha Group, the same unit seen at the attack on the Vilnius TV Tower.

  In an interview with film director Juris Podnieks, an OMON officer revealed that the original plan had targeted Riga, not Vilnius. The switch was made only a week before the January attack on Lithuania. The officer claimed that the Riga OMON was so well prepared that Soviet military forces stationed in the city would not have needed to engage at all.

  Both Boris Pugo and Gorbachev denied knowledge of the operations, even as the OMON named them directly. On the 9th of November 1999, the Riga District Court found ten former Riga OMON officers guilty for their involvement in the attacks. The Communist Party of Latvia, Interfront, the All-Latvian Public Rescue Committee and several related organizations were banned by parliament for the attempted coup, and two leaders of those groups were tried for treason.

  Viktor Alksnis later relocated a large number of Baltic OMON personnel to the Transnistrian region of Moldova. Vladimir Antyufeyev, the commander of the Riga OMON, became Minister of Security there under an assumed name, Vladimir Shevstov. He held that post until 2012. In July 2014, Antyufeyev surfaced again, this time as the deputy prime minister of the Russian-backed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine.

• 7. Outcome and Memory

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  The physical barricades remained in place long after the shooting stopped. Those around the Supreme Council were not removed until the autumn of 1992. In March 1991, Latvia held a poll on independence; three-quarters of participants voted in favor.

  Pro-Soviet forces struck again later in 1991. On the 23rd of May, OMON units attacked five Latvian border posts. During the Soviet coup attempt that summer, several of the same sites guarded during the barricades were seized again. A civilian driver, Raimonds Salmiņš, was killed by Soviet forces during that attack. The coup prompted the Latvian government, which had originally planned a gradual secession, to declare full independence. The Soviet Union recognized that independence on the 6th of September 1991. The Soviet Union itself dissolved in December of that year.

  A support fund for participants of the Barricades was established in 1995. In 2001, it opened the Museum of the Barricades of 1991 in Riga to make its historical materials available to the public. The Commemorative Medal for Participants of the Barricades of 1991 was created by the fund in 1996 and has been awarded by the Latvian state since 1999 to those who showed courage and selflessness during the events. Around 32,000 people have received it. The 20th of January is the official commemoration day for participants, and the barricades are marked by numerous monuments across Latvia.