Flag of Russia

What the flag of Russia looks like

The flag of the Russian Federation is a rectangle with three horizontal stripes of equal height. The top stripe is white, the middle stripe is blue and the bottom stripe is red. The ratio of the width to the height is 2:3. The flag has no emblem, and it looks the same from both sides.

This plain tricolor is the state flag, used for all purposes. Russia also has other official flags that follow different rules. The President has a separate standard with the coat of arms, and the Navy flies a different ensign, a white flag with a blue diagonal cross (the St Andrew's flag). The Russian flag is also known as the "white-blue-red tricolor" and it can be viewed in a small version as the Russia flag emoji.

You can get an image from the download page. Russia spans Europe and Asia, and you can compare its flag with others on the European flags page.

Russian flag meaning and symbolism

The law on the flag names the colors (white, blue and red) but gives them no meaning. In the time of Alexander III the official interpretation was:

• White for nobility and frankness.
• Blue for faithfulness, honesty, impeccability and chastity.
• Red for courage, generosity and love.

A common unofficial explanation links the colors to the three parts of the Russian lands: white for White Russia (Belarus), blue for Little Russia (Ukraine) and red for Great Russia. This is a popular reading, and it is not part of the law.

The same three colors, in different orders, became the Pan-Slavic colors chosen at the Prague Slavic Congress of 1848. They influenced the flags of other Slavic nations, including Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia. They are similar to the colors of the Netherlands flag, from which Peter the Great took his inspiration.

History of the Russian flag

Before Peter the Great, Russian banners were mostly religious and showed images of saints. Peter, who was keenly interested in European-style shipbuilding, introduced a white-blue-red flag for Russian ships, modeled on the Dutch flag. The oldest surviving Russian flag, a tricolor with a golden double-headed eagle, was first raised on his yacht on 6 August 1693, and in 1705 Peter decreed the tricolor as the flag of Russian merchant ships. For a long time it was a maritime flag, and it was used on land only on certain occasions.

In 1858, Tsar Alexander II decreed a state flag of black, yellow and white, based on the dynastic colors of the Romanov coat of arms. The white-blue-red flag stayed in use on merchant ships and among private citizens. In 1883 Alexander III authorized it for decorating buildings on land during public festivities, and in 1896 an imperial order of Nicholas II designated it as the sole national flag of the Russian Empire. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government continued to use it.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the red flag became the symbol of the new state. From 1924, the flag of the Soviet Union was red with a gold hammer and sickle and a star. This is the reason people ask about the sickle: the hammer and sickle belong to the Soviet flag and not to the present Russian flag. The Russian republic within the USSR had its own flag, and from 1954 it was red with a blue stripe at the hoist.

In 1991 the white-blue-red tricolor was readopted: the Supreme Soviet of the Russian republic declared it the national flag on 22 August 1991, after the failed coup in Moscow. The Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin on 25 December 1991, when the USSR ended. The present proportions of 2:3 and darker shades were set by a decree of President Yeltsin in 1993, the current law on the state flag dates from 2000, and 22 August has been celebrated as National Flag Day since 1994.

Flags that look like the Russian flag

Several flags use the same colors. The flag of Slovakia has the same stripes in the same order, with a coat of arms on the left side. The flag of Slovenia also has them, with a shield in the upper left corner. The flag of Serbia has red, blue and white stripes. The flag of Luxembourg is red, white and light blue, and the Netherlands has red, white and blue.