The evening began at St Nicolas Church Yard with brief welcoming addresses by Mayor Burkhard Jung and other distinguished guests, including Irina Scherbakowa, co-founder of Memorial (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022), Carsten Schneider, Minister of State and Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Germany, and Liubov Lysenko, lecturer at the Kyiv Conservatory of Music. The welcoming addresses were broadcast onto a screen at the market square. The opening was accompanied musically by the “Ensemble Flautissimo” of the “Johann Sebastian Bach” Music School. The musicians were Lisa Marie Klein, Amalia Schlesier and Marius Hipper (all playing the flute).
At St Nicolas Church Yard stood the traditional candles' podium '89, which was illuminated over the course of the evening by visitors with thousands of tealights. At all information stands in the city centre, visitors received candles free of charge. Anyone who wished could make a symbolic candle sponsorship there via cash donation or PayPal. In 2022, the proceeds from the campaign went to the Journalists-in-Residence Programme of the Leipzig-based European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). Media professionals and activists for press freedom find refuge and support here.
