14 DAY TRIAL // Almost 15,000 people gathered in the freezing weather in Latvia to celebrate Riga's designation as European Capital of Culture for 2014 and to form a huge human chain of book lovers. The emotional ceremony involved passing books from hand to hand from an old library to the newly built one.
Recalling the Baltic state's fight for independence from the Soviet Union back in 1989, Latvians formed a mile-long (about two-kilometer) chain across the capital city.
The event was meant to celebrate the two million protesters who formed a human chain across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the “Baltic Way” demonstration.
During this year's event people passed along books from Riga's 150-year-old library to the new construction opening in the summer. The celebration holding a deep symbolic meaning for the country was stretched across the city and the Daugava river.
Almost 800 officials joined the event, including political figures, local celebrities, journalists, company directors and librarians. The campaign was organized by Aiva Rozenberga and was called “The Chain of Book Lovers – The Path of Light.”
It took participants almost five hours to pass about 2000 books from one part of the city to the other. Despite the cold weather, people of all ages and foreigners from the Baltic states, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, U.S. and Russia joined in.
The atmosphere was amazing as people were singing and dancing in the process of passing books from one to another. The first book passed on to the human chain was the Holy Bible in Latvian, published in St. Petersburg in 1825, notes the International Association of Music Libraries.
In order to protect the books and keep them from deteriorating during the passing from hand to hand, they were all covered in plastic foil. The new National Library of Latvia will open its doors on August 29, and will have its first public exhibitions in April.
