In the last days, I have discussed the issue of the putch of 1991 in USSR (see my topic about Yannaev at Russian Federation channel) with Russians at their channel and was damned surprised to meet only people having spoken pro Stalinist putch leader Yannaev and contra Gorbatshov and Jelzin.

But I am surely also interested in knowing, what mailfriends from Lithuania think about the issue, how you experienced those scary days in August 1991, reciprocally, what you think about it today and how concerned people in your country were.

When Yannaev & Co brought the world to the abbyss by announcing the cancelling of all treaties Gorbatshov had signed before, including the abolishment of Breshnev doctrine (1989) as well as the ones about ending strict neutrality obligation of Sweden, Finland and Austria (all 1989) and German re-unification (beginning of 1990) and provocating like this important mobilizations of troops in Germany ( all NATO troops, US soldiers on holidays even called back to the weapons), France (has also particular, bilateral agreements on military support with Germany) and even in the neutral (of those times) countries of Sweden and Finland, I just was on the way from West Germany to Finland by train and ship via Hamburg - Stockholm.

So, I have seen with my own eyes, how concerned Swedish and Finnish people were about the bad news from Moscow. I remarked it especially as passenger of the evening ferry of Viking Line, having left Stockholm for the Alands and Turku on August 21 1991 at 8 pm (Swedish time = CEST in his case), a few hours before Yannaev resigned and was arrested. In the port of Stockholm, the controls of boarding passengers where much more strict than usual (not to compare at all with my experiences on the same ferry line in 1992). The intermediary stop at the Alands, sheduled in regular time table of this evening ferry Stockholm -Turku, was cancelled and the crew ordered to go straight on to Finland with full speed due to the menaces of Yannaev against Sweden and Finland. He explicitely mentioned it in one of his 1st statements, that he insisted on Sweden, Finland and Austria staying neutral forever.
His tone towards the 3 countries was so harsh, that NATO leaders even thought, that Yannaev also might try to realize this strategical aim by violence.

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viva_peron

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