Defence minister unveils installation warning freedom is not guaranteed

Freedom cannot be taken for granted, Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said on Monday as he unveiled the installation Toward Unconditional Freedom at Vilnius railway station, LRT reported.

The interactive installation, displayed in the station’s main hall, features photographs taken between 1989 and 1993 showing moments from Lithuania’s struggle for independence.

“Although we are celebrating freedom, there are still countries in the world that have to fight for it. The same occupier, the same Russia, is forcing Ukraine to pay the highest price for its choice to be free today. Therefore, we must remember that freedom is not a given,” Kaunas said.

The installation will remain on display until Monday evening. Visitors can write what freedom means to them, with their words then projected on a screen.

“It is symbolic that we are at a railway station, where a direction is chosen, East or West. On August 31, 1993, Freedom Day, the occupiers left in an easterly direction. That day, Lithuania chose the western direction, the direction of democracy, prosperity and responsibility for its decisions and its home,” Kaunas said.

Transport Minister Juras Taminskas, who also attended the opening, urged people to create, communicate, travel and think freely.

“Freedom is doing what you want to do at that moment without coercion or pressure, and freedom is travelling. Not only physically, but also in your thinking. When you can travel freely through your thoughts, you can also create, and a free state is a creative state,” he said.

After Lithuania restored its independence on March 11, 1990, about five divisions of the occupying army, around 34,600 troops, 1,000 tanks, approximately 180 aircraft and 1,901 armoured vehicles were deployed in the country.

Negotiations began soon after independence was declared and lasted several years, eventually bringing Lithuania complete freedom from the occupying forces. The last Russian army military train passed through Kenа railway station without stopping at 11:46 p.m. on August 31, 1993.