“We were going to beat them with sticks and take their guns”: a political scientist recalls the barricades of 1991 0 8

“We were students when we went to the barricades. We stood in the first nights near the Herder monument, by the Dome Cathedral between two rows of barricades - it was risky. There was agricultural machinery set up in front, facing the Daugava, so the paratroopers would go through a narrow passage. We discussed how we would beat them with sticks, take their guns and shoot. What would have happened, we don’t know, only God knows,” he recalls.

“During the first nights, there was a very special feeling because from time to time someone would run in and say that an attack was imminent. Allegedly near Adazi - tanks. We didn’t know, there were no mobile phones. Apparently, someone on ‘Voice of America’ said that it would happen at four in the morning. Well, okay, we waited. Then everything started to dissolve,” the political scientist paints a picture of those events.

“People were just incredibly united. Institutions in Riga prepared sandwiches, in the center and in Old Riga, the doors of institutions on the first floors were open, there were mountains of sandwiches. People were united, very soulful. I think crime in downtown Riga was zero during those days. Serious men came from the countryside. They brought tractors, cars. An indescribable unity. There was nothing like it and there can’t be. When they say it should be like this every day, it’s unrealistic. But I believe: when needed, Latvians are ready... Not only Latvians, I think there would be others on the side of independence, those living in Latvia who would be ready to fight again. I hope it won’t be necessary.”