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On 26 March, a ceremony was held at Vilnius International Airport, during which the first Lithuanian visa was returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prominent British journalist Edward Lucas handed over his passport stamped with the first Lithuanian visa to the country’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Šarūnas Adomavičius. On 28 March 1990 at Vilnius International Airport, 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. 

As E.Lucas said during this commemorative event, his passport with the Lithuanian visa was “in a certain sense one of the founding documents of Lithuania’s diplomacy” and one of the symbols of Lithuania’s statehood from that period.

According to Vice-Minister Š.Adomavičius, E. Lucas’s passport that was handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is an important document of Lithuania’s history of the recent 20 years. In the Vice-Minister’s words, the issuance of the visa on 28 March 1990 was one of the steps towards the realization of Lithuania’s sovereignty.

“It was especially important, that Lithuania started controlling its state borders and implementing foreign policy,” Vice-Minister Š.Adomavičius said.

According to the Vice-Minister, 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.

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’.