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On 26 March a ceremony will be held at Vilnius International Airport, during which the first Lithuanian visa will come back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prominent British journalist Edward Lucas will hand over his passport stamped with the first Lithuanian visa to Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Šarūnas Adomavičius.

Vilnius International Airport was chosen as the ceremony venue, because there on 28 March 1990 E.Lucas’s passport was stamped with the first Lithuanian visa by Algirdas Saudargas, who then was Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Giedrius Čekuolis, who was Foreign Ministry’s chief of protocol in those days. 

Barely 17 days after the restoration of Lithuania’s Independence this bold step demonstrated a consistent wish of the re-established state to revive the attributes of statehood, and to take over the governance and control of the country into its hands. Fully aware how important it was to show the world that Lithuania was capable of deciding who could enter the country, in one day the Supreme Council (Reconstituent Seimas) of the Republic of Lithuania, the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepared and adopted all the necessary legislation setting out entry procedures for foreign nationals.

It’s not an unexpected coincidence that the first Lithuanian visa was given to today’s correspondent for The Economist, who had covered Eastern Europe since 1986. At that time, the free word, which is so common today, was perhaps the only tool, which the re-established state could use to persuade the world that it was determined to get firmly on the path toward freedom and democracy.

E.Lucas’s passport is presented to Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the restoration of Lithuania’s Independence. The passport will be displayed at Vilnius International Airport until Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly with the National Museum of Lithuania will prepare an exposition on the history of Lithuania’s diplomacy.

E.Lucas has been conferred the Cross of the Knight of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas and the award of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ‘The Star of Lithuania’s Millennium’.