1991. THE BARRICADES

In January 1991 after the bloody firing at Vilnius TV centre in Lithuania, people in Riga started erecting barricades to protect the newly elected national government from the last agony of the USSR. For a week people kept vigil at fires built up right on the streets. Documentary filmmakers kept on working, documenting these quintessential events. On January 20 the special task force of the Soviet police stormed the Interior Ministry of Latvia, two cameramen from Juris Podnieks’s crew – Gvido Zvaigzne and Andris Slapiņš were mortally wounded in the centre of Riga. The last moments of their lives were included in the film Pēcvārds (Post Scriptum, 1991) by Juris Podnieks.