Flag and Emblem (1/2): Russian Flag

Topics: culture  cities and country 
Keywords: symbol  Knowledgia 

When you see the current Russian flag, it’s easy to also think of the Dutch one. This puts you immediately on the right track about the origin of the Russian tricolor: the white-blue-red of the Russian Federation directly stems from the red-white-blue of the Netherlands.


Meaning

There are several interpretations regarding the reasoning behind this tricolor. One says white stands for God, blue for the tsar or king, and red for the land and people. More commonly, the colors are linked to noble qualities: white for purity, blue for loyalty, red for courage, and more.

Summary: ‘Although there are different theories (…), none is accepted as the correct one. Russian law does not assign any official meanings to the colors.’

See Flag/ Fan Friday Russia (Geography Now, 2020, 15 m) and Symbolism of Russian flag and coat of arms (Geografie 28, 2018, 1 m).

See/read:


The Flag of Russia Explained
( Knowledgia, 2018, 2 m)



History


What Happened to the Old Russian Flag?
( History With Hilbert, 2020, 10 m)



Colors and color codes

Blue and red come in many shades. Exactly what the correct ones are is not set by law. However, it is required by law that the blue be dark (unlike the 1991 to 1993 version). This may also be because the Russian word for light blue (голубой) is sometimes used to refer to homosexuals (more on Moscas de Colores, Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary).

Hex codes: #0033A0 for blue and #DA291C for red ( Scheme Color), or #0039A6 and #D52B1E ( Apple Colors). White is always #FFFFFF.


More flags

For the flags of regions or oblasts, see Flags of the federal subjects of Russia by date of adopted (Geografie 28, 2018, 9 m) and Federal subjects of Russia (idem, 11 m). Flags of former Soviet countries in New national flags of Post-Soviet states (idem, 2 m).


Flag Day

A date you shouldn’t forget (or can’t, in some places): August 22, Russian Flag Day.

See:

See/read:


Russia Flag Day: A Holiday with Many Different Meanings
( Drago Victorien, 2018, 1.5 m)



More

See:


See/read:


Downloads available at Countryflags, Flagpedia, and PNGtree.
Images at WallpaperCave and WallpaperAccess.

For more on the Dutch flag, see Quest, Margriet, and the List of flags based on the Dutch flag. The Netherlands only has a Flag Day in the Caribbean.

More

Country

Russians on the Netherlands and the Dutch

The Netherlands holds a unique place in the Russian imagination. This is how our country, and we, are viewed through Russian eyes.

Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin

An interview becomes legendary when it gets its own page on Wikipedia. On February 6, 2024, Tucker Carlson spoke with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. The report (127 minutes) offers a good, or at least broad, opportunity to hear the Russian perspective on the war against Ukraine.

GOPNIK AND THE SLAV SQUAT

What we would call ’tokkies’ or ‘gabbers’, and what elsewhere might be referred to as white trash or hooligans – in Russia, these are called gopniki. Folk culture in a tracksuit.

Photo: Igor Mukhin

Since the age of sixteen, Игорь Мухин (1961) has been taking photographs. Armed with a Смена-8М camera, he started his journey. So, when he found himself among artists and musicians in the 1980s, he already had a trained eye – and a better camera. Mukhin (sometimes Moukhin) witnessed major changes and began documenting them.

Samizdat (Down with Big Tech)

Freedom of speech is decreasing everywhere, though the reasons vary by region. Meanwhile, Big Tech’s power is growing, along with its interference. In this new era, a nearly forgotten Soviet answer is reemerging: samizdat, the underground DIY press and distribution network.

Flag and Emblem (2/2): Saint George and the Eagle

Country
Every country has a flag and a coat of arms. The Netherlands has a lion, France has a rooster, New Zealand has a kiwi, and the United States has a bald eagle. In Russia, it’s an eagle with two heads and three crowns, and a man on a horse who has just killed a dragon with a spear.

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