Today Russia celebrates National Flag Day

Today the Russian Federation celebrates arguably one of the most important national holidays: National Flag Day. It was established by Presidential Decree No. 1714 of August 20, 1994.
On August 22, 1991 the Russian tricolour was officially raised over the White House in Moscow for the first time, replacing the red flag with a hammer and sickle as the state symbol. On that day, an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted a resolution according to which the “flag of... white, azure and scarlet stripes” was now considered the official national flag of the Russian Federation.
The flag of the Russian Federation is the official state symbol, along with the Coat of Arms and the Anthem of the Russian Federation.
The flag is a rectangular cloth of three equal horizontal stripes: white at the top, blue in the middle and red at the bottom. The flag’s width to length ratio is 2:3.
The tricolour was first used under Peter the Great who decreed in 1705 that all merchant ships were to sail under a white, blue and red flag to identify the ship’s country and who himself designed the pattern and determined the order of the horizontal stripes.
The tricolour became the official flag of the Russian Empire only in 1896, when on the eve of the coronation of Nicholas II the Ministry of Justice determined that the white, blue and red colour was to be “definitely considered the national colour, and no other.”
According to one of the versions of the meaning behind the flag’s colours, white represents Freedom, blue represents the Mother of God who protects Russia and red represents the Sovereignty.
Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, noted in his congratulations on National Flag Day: “For centuries, the Russian tricolour has embodied strength, power and national dignity of our country, the link of eras and continuity of generations. It symbolizes the freedom and independence of Russia. It inspires pride and respect.”