Day of the State Flag of the Russian Federation

The date August 22 became a holiday in Russia in the last decade of the 20th century. By historical standards, this is quite recent. But the establishment of a tricolor with red, white and blue stripes as the official symbol of the country is rooted in the origins of Russian statehood in the distant 17th century. During the reign of Alexei Romanov, the first warship was decorated with a tricolor flag. This innovation did not become widespread, and only the royal decree of Peter I designated the red-white-blue tricolor as the main one among other banners of the Russian fleet, having personally sketched its appearance and the order of colors. Why Peter chose this three-color option, there is no exact answer. Perhaps the main reason for the young tsar was the memory of his father’s warships, or perhaps Pyotr Alekseevich remembered his beloved Holland, where the tall ship masts were full of just such noticeable flags. In any case, Peter the Great ordered that the tricolor be hoisted on commercial and trading Russian river vessels. In this status, the red-white-blue symbol existed until the second half of the 19th century, when it had to compete with another tricolor with a white-yellow-black color combination. After heated discussions in 1883, the model introduced by Peter began to be called Russian national. And a flag with white, gold and black stripes is monarchical or dynastic Romanov. The national flag has its own color symbolism, where white is the color of nobility and duty, red is the color of strength and courage, and blue means devotion. At the same time, the colors were associated with Great, White and Little Russia, which means that the three-color banner symbolizes a large-scale, united and strong power. The red, white and blue colors flaunted majestically over Imperial Russia until the October 1917 coup. Revolutionary-minded Bolsheviks rejected everything that had to do with tsarism, so a new symbol was born in the young Land of Soviets - a red flag, stained with the blood of revolutionaries. The Russian tricolor national flag returned to its original place of honor only on August 22, 1991, by the decision of the session of the Supreme Council, but the date received the status of an official Russian holiday two years later, secured by a decree of President B.N. Yeltsin. At the same time, the White House decorated a flag with three equal stripes: white, blue and red. In 2000, the State Duma approved the proposal of President V.V. Putin to adopt a law on state symbols. Now, the flag is protected by the constitution as a source of national pride, a symbol of democracy and unity. Russians are introducing new interesting traditions of celebrating Flag Day, these are rallies, demonstrations, flash mobs and other events. The pioneers of the celebration of August 22 were the residents of St. Petersburg, who fired shots from the Peter and Paul Fortress in 2007. The largest and heaviest tricolor was raised by Muscovites, in Ulyanovsk there was a solemn procession with a 30-meter tricolor flag, in Novosibirsk the Russian tricolor was made up of participants in multi-colored suits, and in Omsk from airplanes. Festive events in large and small cities of Russia showed what a powerful unifying force a state symbol can have.