The Baltic States: A Tapestry of Tradition and Resistance

Article summary

What this article covers: Who the Baltic States are, how they regained independence, the living traditions travellers can still experience in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, the parallels with Ireland’s own story, and a practical seven-day route by rail.

Who this is for: Travellers planning a first trip to the Baltics, readers with Irish roots curious about other small nations that kept their culture alive, and anyone who wants a clear answer to what the Baltic States actually are.

Key takeaway: The Baltic States share a coastline and a twentieth-century history, but Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have distinct languages and traditions, and their mass song festivals are the clearest way into all three.

Expert insight: “When I read about crowds of thousands singing folk songs to an occupying power, I think of every Irish kitchen where a sean-nós song survived after the language had nowhere else to go. The Baltic States show what Ireland also learnt: that a song can hold a nation’s memory long after the official record has been rewritten.”, Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove

Quick facts:

• The Baltic Song and Dance Celebrations were proclaimed by UNESCO in 2003 and inscribed on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.
• Latvian and Lithuanian belong to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, while Estonian is a Finnic language closely related to Finnish.
• Since January 2025, a coordinated daily rail service has linked Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn on a single ticket, with one change at Valga on the Estonian and Latvian border.

The Baltic States are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and for most visitors the first surprise is how different the three are from one another. They sit side by side along the eastern Baltic Sea; they share a hard twentieth century, and all three joined the European Union and NATO in 2004. Beyond that, they speak unrelated languages, follow different religious traditions and remember different medieval histories.

For travellers from Ireland, the Baltics carry a familiar story. Small nations held on to their languages, songs and folklore while larger powers ruled them, and music became a form of quiet resistance. ConnollyCove, the Ireland-based travel and culture platform, has spent years documenting that same pattern at home through its guides to traditional Irish music and the sessions where it survives. This guide brings that perspective to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and ends with a practical route for seeing all three.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania make up the Baltic States

The term Baltic States refers to three countries: Estonia in the north, Latvia in the middle and Lithuania in the south. Their capitals are Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and their shared western border is the Baltic Sea, which gives the group its name. Finland was sometimes counted among the Baltic States after the First World War, but since the Second World War the term has meant these three countries only.

The grouping is geographical and historical rather than cultural. In the strict linguistic sense, the Baltic peoples are the Latvians and Lithuanians, whose languages belong to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family. Estonians speak a Finnic language, and an Estonian and a Finn can follow each other far more easily than an Estonian and a Latvian can. The table below sets out the basics for each country.

Country	Capital	Language family	Joined EU and NATO	Adopted the euro	Best suited for
Estonia	Tallinn	Finnic (Uralic)	2004	2011	Medieval walled Old Town, Nordic links, coastal national parks
Latvia	Riga	Baltic (Indo-European)	2004	2014	Art Nouveau architecture, Midsummer, forest and river walking
Lithuania	Vilnius	Baltic (Indo-European)	2004	2015	Baroque Old Town, castles, folk song and pre-Christian heritage

The Baltic States gained independence twice in one century

The Baltic States first became independent at the end of the First World War, lost that independence in 1940, and restored it in 1990 and 1991. Lithuania declared independence on 16 February 1918, Estonia on 24 February 1918 and Latvia on 18 November 1918. All three won recognition after the wars that followed, including peace treaties with Soviet Russia in 1920. They adopted their first constitutions in 1920 (Estonia) and 1922 (Latvia and Lithuania).

The interwar years were short. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany placed the region in the Soviet sphere, and in 1940 the Soviet Union forcibly incorporated all three states. Most Western governments never recognised that annexation as legal. German occupation followed from 1941, and during it the large Jewish communities of the region, especially in Lithuania, were almost entirely murdered in the Holocaust. Soviet rule returned in 1944 and brought mass deportations to Siberia.

Resistance took two forms. Armed partisans, often called the Forest Brothers, fought Soviet forces in the woods from 1944 until the mid-1950s. Alongside them, ordinary people kept their culture going in less visible ways: songs learnt at home, books passed hand to hand and quiet religious observance. Ireland’s own hedge schools offer a close parallel, and ConnollyCove’s account of how the hedge schools kept the bardic tradition alive shows how a culture can survive when it is pushed out of formal life.

Independence came back through peaceful protest. On 23 August 1989, around two million people joined hands in the Baltic Way, a human chain running from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Lithuania declared the restoration of its independence on 11 March 1990. Estonia and Latvia followed on 20 and 21 August 1991, during the failed coup in Moscow, and the Soviet Union recognised all three that September.

The Singing Revolution grew out of a song festival tradition

The Singing Revolution is the name given to the peaceful protests of 1987 to 1991, when huge crowds gathered to sing national songs that Soviet authorities had discouraged. It worked because the region already had a mass singing tradition. The first Estonian song festival took place in Tartu in 1869, and the first Latvian one in Riga in 1873, and Lithuania has held national song celebrations since 1924. UNESCO describes these celebrations as one of the main ways the Baltic States asserted their cultural identity after the First World War.

During the Soviet period, the festivals continued, but their programmes were shaped to suit the official ideology. Choirs still found ways to include songs that meant something different to the crowd. When the political climate loosened in the late 1980s, the festival grounds became the natural place for hundreds of thousands of people to gather, and the songs became open statements of national feeling.

The festivals still run today and remain amateur at heart, with choirs and dance groups rehearsing all year in towns and villages. The UNESCO entry for the Baltic song and dance celebrations explains how the repertoire runs from the oldest folk songs to new compositions. Estonia held its national festival in 2025 and Lithuania marked the centenary of its celebrations in 2024. Each country’s festival comes round roughly every four to five years, so check official dates before you plan a trip around one.

Ireland’s revival followed a similar path. Conradh na Gaeilge was founded in 1893 to revive the Irish language, and it soon took music and dance under its wing as part of the same project. ConnollyCove’s guide to Irish dance forms and the history behind them tells that story. Today the Fleadh Cheoil and the sessions covered in our guide to Irish folk music and where to hear it live play a role that Baltic visitors would recognise: they keep a tradition alive by performing it in public rather than preserving it behind glass.

Estonia blends a medieval capital with Nordic ties

Estonia is the smallest and most northerly of the three countries, and its capital is the easiest introduction to the region. Tallinn’s well-preserved Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, with a lower town of merchants’ houses and a walled upper town on Toompea Hill. From the walls on a summer evening, you can see the ferry traffic to Helsinki out in the bay, a reminder of how closely Estonia looks north as well as south.

Beyond the Old Town, the wooden houses of the Kalamaja district show a quieter side of the city. The Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, a short trip east of the centre, are worth the visit for anyone interested in the Singing Revolution. Further afield, Tartu is Estonia’s university city and the birthplace of its song festival tradition. Lahemaa National Park on the north coast offers forest, bog and coastline within easy reach of the capital.

Estonian identity rests heavily on its language. Estonian is a Finnic language, unrelated to Latvian or Lithuanian, and it survived centuries in which German, Swedish and Russian elites held power. Estonia is also among the most secular countries in Europe, with a Lutheran heritage and a smaller Orthodox community.

Latvia pairs Art Nouveau with deep folk traditions

Latvia sits between its neighbours, and for many visitors it is defined by Riga. The Latvian capital is known for its Art Nouveau architecture, concentrated in the streets north of the Old Town, and its Central Market occupies former zeppelin hangars beside the river. Riga’s historic centre is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Latvian culture is closely tied to the forest and the farming year. The dainas are short four-line folk songs about birth, work, marriage and death. The folklorist Krišjānis Barons collected them on paper slips stored in a wooden cabinet known as the Cabinet of Folksongs, which is now on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register. Old Latvian belief gave special meaning to certain trees, especially the oak and the linden, which will sound familiar to anyone who has read about Ireland’s fairy trees and the folklore that protects them.

Outside Riga, Sigulda and Gauja National Park offer river valleys, sandstone cliffs and castle ruins, and Sigulda sits on the main railway line north towards Estonia. Latvia’s religious picture is mixed, with Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox communities; the Catholic tradition is strongest in the eastern region of Latgale.

Lithuania keeps a pre-Christian memory alive

Lithuania is the largest and most southerly of the Baltic States, with a history quite different from its northern neighbours. In the late Middle Ages, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was one of the largest states in Europe, and it later formed a commonwealth with Poland. Lithuania was also the last country in Europe to accept Christianity officially, in 1387, and that late conversion helps explain why pre-Christian customs survive so strongly in its folklore. Today it is the most Catholic of the three countries.

Vilnius has a large Baroque Old Town, also a UNESCO World Heritage site, with Gothic and Renaissance buildings among the church towers. Across the river, the Užupis neighbourhood declared itself an independent artists’ republic in 1997, complete with its own constitution posted on a wall. Trakai Island Castle, set in a lake west of the city, makes an easy day trip.

The Lithuanian language keeps many archaic Indo-European features, which is why linguists often study it alongside Latin and Sanskrit. Between 1864 and 1904, the Russian Empire banned Lithuanian books printed in the Latin alphabet. In response, the knygnešiai, or book smugglers, carried Lithuanian books across the border from East Prussia at great personal risk. The parallel with Irish is plain, and ConnollyCove’s guide to how folklore shaped the Irish language traces how Irish lost its formal role and survived in homes and stories.

Baltic traditions have close parallels in Ireland

Baltic and Irish traditions share striking similarities, though these reflect how small farming societies marked the year rather than any shared ancestry. The comparisons below help explain both cultures, and they give Irish visitors a way into Baltic customs that can feel strange at first.

Midsummer fires burn on the same night

Midsummer is the biggest folk festival in all three Baltic States, celebrated on the night of 23 June and the day of 24 June. Latvians call it Jāņi, Estonians Jaanipäev and Lithuanians Joninės, also known as Rasos. People light bonfires, wear wreaths of oak leaves or flowers and sing through the shortest night. In Lithuanian and Latvian tradition, they also search the woods for the fern flower, which is said to bloom only on that night.

Ireland lights its own bonfires on the same date. St John’s Eve, or Bonfire Night, falls on 23 June, and in parts of the west and north communities still gather around a fire on a hill or crossroads. ConnollyCove’s guide to the four Celtic festivals of fire explains how Bealtaine and Samhain fit around it. Our look at which Celtic solstice customs are historically documented separates the old traditions from modern inventions. For the wider calendar, see our overview of traditional Celtic festivities through the year.

Folk belief peopled the land with spirits

Lithuanian folklore features the laumės, female spirits of the woods and waters, alongside household spirits and thunder gods. Latvian dainas name a range of deities tied to the sun, fate and the home. Irish tradition filled the countryside with spirits in a comparable way, through the Aos Sí and the creatures described in our guide to legendary creatures from Celtic mythology. Readers interested in the older Irish gods can compare them with the Tuatha Dé Danann and the sites linked to their legends.

Animals held special meaning in both traditions too. In Lithuanian belief, the grass snake, or žaltys, was a protective household creature. ConnollyCove’s guide to sacred animals in ancient cultures around the world places customs like this in a wider context.

Unaccompanied song carried the oldest material

Lithuania’s sutartinės are multipart songs, usually sung by women in interlocking voices, and UNESCO added them to its intangible heritage list in 2010. They sound nothing like Irish music, but they play a similar role to sean-nós, the old unaccompanied style that carries the oldest songs in Irish. ConnollyCove’s piece on the sean-nós dance revival covers how that “old style” survived in the Gaeltacht. The table below summarises the main parallels between the two traditions.

Baltic tradition	Irish counterpart	Where to experience the Baltic tradition	Recommendation
Midsummer (Jāņi, Jaanipäev, Joninės)	St John’s Eve bonfires on 23 June	Rural Latvia and Estonia, open-air museums near Riga and Tallinn	Plan a June visit around it if you can
Song and dance celebrations	Fleadh Cheoil and the Gaelic revival	Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn and Riga, Vingis Park in Vilnius	Check festival years before booking
Latvian dainas	Schools’ Collection of folklore, 1937 to 1939	National Library of Latvia in Riga	Visit for context on the folk song archive
Sutartinės	Sean-nós singing	Folk ensembles and festivals in Lithuania	Seek out a live performance
Lithuanian book smugglers	Hedge schools under the Penal Laws	Museums and monuments in Lithuania	Pair with the Vilnius Old Town

Language greetings help visitors connect

A few words of the local language make a real difference in the Baltics, as they do in rural Ireland. Estonians greet each other with “tere” (hello) and say “aitäh” for thank you. Latvians use “sveiki” for hello and “paldies” for thank you. Lithuanians say “labas” as a casual hello, “laba diena” for good day and “ačiū” for thank you.

Irish visitors may notice how much weight these small courtesies carry in languages that were once pushed aside. The same instinct runs through ConnollyCove’s guides to saying goodbye in Irish, traditional Irish proverbs and their meanings and Irish farewell blessings for every occasion, where a short phrase carries a whole outlook.

A seven-day route covers Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius

One week is enough to see all three capitals by rail, with a day trip from each, although ten to twelve days allows time for the national parks. The route works in either direction, so let your flights decide. Travellers arriving by ferry from Helsinki should start in Tallinn, while those flying into Vilnius can run it north.

Days one and two in Tallinn

Spend the first day in the Old Town, walking from the lower town up to Toompea for views over the roofs. On the second day, visit Kalamaja and the Song Festival Grounds, or take a day trip east to Lahemaa National Park.

Days three and four in Riga

Take the morning train south through Tartu to Valga on the border, where you change on the same platform for the Latvian train to Riga. In Riga, give one day to the Old Town, the Art Nouveau district and the Central Market. Spend the next day in Sigulda and Gauja National Park, which are on the railway line you arrived on.

Days five to seven in Vilnius

The direct train from Riga to Vilnius calls at Šiauliai, the nearest town to the Hill of Crosses, so travellers with time can break the journey there on separate tickets. In Vilnius, spend one day in the Old Town and Užupis and another on a trip to Trakai Island Castle. Keep the last morning free before your flight.

UK and Irish travellers have simple options for getting there

Flying is the most practical route from Ireland and Britain. Direct flights operate from Dublin and from several UK airports to the Baltic capitals, but some routes are seasonal and schedules change, so check current timetables before planning. Many travellers fly into one capital and out of another to avoid doubling back.

Getting around is straightforward. Since January 2025, the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian railways have run a coordinated daily service between Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn, on a single ticket with one cross-platform change at Valga. Long-distance coaches also link the three capitals and are often quicker between Riga and Tallinn. A fast ferry connects Helsinki with Tallinn in roughly two hours, which makes it easy to combine Finland with the Baltics.

All three countries use the euro and are in the Schengen area, and card payment is widely accepted in the cities. The Baltics are generally cheaper than Western European capitals, though Tallinn tends to be the most expensive of the three. Our guide to lower-cost destinations around the world covers other options for travellers watching their budget. Before travelling, check the latest advice from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office or the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

Current conditions and seasonal information

Late May to early September is the most comfortable time to visit, with long daylight hours and the main festival season. Midsummer on 23 and 24 June is a public holiday period. Many city residents head for the countryside and some city businesses close, while rural celebrations are at their busiest. In festival years, song and dance celebrations usually take place in early July and fill accommodation well in advance.

Winters are cold and dark, with short days and snow common from December, but the Old Towns hold Christmas markets that draw visitors in December. Spring and autumn are quieter and cheaper, though the weather is less predictable. For trains, booking on the main international routes typically opens about a month ahead, and the official operator websites give current timetables.

Explore more cultural travel on ConnollyCove

The Baltic States reward travellers who look past the Old Town postcards to the songs, festivals and languages that kept these nations together. ConnollyCove covers cultural traditions from Ireland and around the world, and Ciaran Connolly founded the platform to help travellers find the stories behind the places they visit. For more on the Irish side of this story, start with our guide to traditional Irish music, or watch the ConnollyCove YouTube channel for video guides to Irish heritage sites.

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