History of the Russian Flag

Lots of people heard about Russia, some of them even been there, but not so many of them can tell the story of the Russian flag, and at least to name its colours. The white-blue-and-red flag means a lot to its people. Its history goes back to the 17th century. It was the time of the Great Czar Alexei Mikhailovich reign. By the way, Peter the Great, the Greatest Russian ruler was his son. So once, in 1668, the Great Czar ordered to build ships for protecting merchant navy. It meant that if there was a fleet, there should have been a flag. But those days there wasn’t any State Flag. The Czar studied carefully different flags and their colours and finally chose the white-blue-and-red colour. Peter the Great draw the flag sample and chose the horizontal direction of its stripes. So in 1712 there could be seen another flag: white with the blue cross in honour of the Saint Apostle Andrew.

Each sovereign of Russia thought it was their duty to change something in the Russian national symbols.

In 1858 Alexander II set up the third variant of the Russian Flag: black-yellow-and-white. Its colours symbolized land-gold-and-silver. This so-called the “monarchic” flag existed till 1883.

The Russians were and are very religious and they think that if there is a cross on the flag the country will be prosperous and saint. After losing the Russian-Japanese war, and having heavy tolls during the First World War, and holding three revolutions and a civil war, the Czar decided to change the flag’s appearance one more time. In 1896 on the eve of Nikolai II coronation there was an order to confirm the white-blue-and-red colours. Red is Power, Blue is the colour of the Blessed Virgin of Russia, and White is Freedom and Independence. 

But unfortunately in 1918 the communist Jacob Sverdlov suggested the Red-colour flag probably borrowed from the European socialists. Despite the dramatically tragic period in the Russian history, people could defend the country from fascism.

The year of 1991 was the year of democratic reforms and when the Red Flag was taken down there was nothing to set up instead of it.

On the 22 august 1991 after being very close to the revolution the government decided to set up the white-blue-and-red flag.