Russian Regions Flags Explained #1. Republics and Krais

After the collapse of the USSR, there was a tendency in Russia to create flags for everything: federal subjects, towns, cities, towns, villages. The flag, coat of arms and anthem has absolutely EVERYTHING. Our people do not always have design talents, but we have no imagination. Therefore, the subjects, the main subdivisions of Russia, certainly have entertaining flags.

P. S. In parentheses, the Russian name comes first, then the names in local official languages

Republics are regions of Russia that belong to nations. They have their own titular nation, language (sometimes more than one. Crimea has 3, Karachay-Cherkessia — 5, Dagestan more than 10) constitution, and, of course, the best flags. Let's take a look!

Simple, but beautiful, like Altai itself (not to be confused with Altai Krai, we call it Mountainous Altai). The flag was invented and approved in 1992, in the early 90s. No frills.

Bashkirs preserve their culture and identity quite well, so it is one of the most famous republics of Russia. They have a pretty good flag, and it has historical roots. Blue, white and green are the national colors of Bashkirs and were previously used in the flag of the unrecognized state of Bashkurdistan.

You may ask why the name is only in Russian? I will say: Dagestan is a federation within a Federation. If there are Buryats in Buryatia, Tatars in Tatarstan, then Dagestan is a hodgepodge of dozens of nations, such as Avars, Laks, Lezgins, Kumyks and others.

The flag of Dagestan is simple and without any special inventions, green is a symbol of Islam, blue is the Caspian Sea and the beauty of the Dagestani people, red is democracy and the brave of Dagestanis.

The smallest republic in the Caucasus has an interesting and beautiful flag. You may ask, what is this sign on the flag? This is a solar sign, better known as a swastika. But this symbol is not even close to the Nazi swastika, and has nothing to do with Hitler. This is one of the traditional symbols of the Ingush, meaning well-being and prosperity (as in India, but Hitler blackened it so that no one in their right mind would use it)

This is a "union" of two peoples: Kabards (a subethnos of Circassians, that is, relatives of the Adygs) and Balkars (a single people with Karachays). And this is noticeable on this minimalist flag. Blue color and mountains are the symbol of the Balkars, green — Kabards. Kabards sometimes uses the flag of Adygea.

This flag goes right after Buryatia. Look at it — it's beautiful! Buddhists do everything perfectly and without unnecessary details.

Steppe Kalmykia is the only Buddhist nation in Europe, so the flag depicts a sacred flower, lotus.

Despite this name, Karachay-Cherkessia has five official languages: Russian, Karachay-Balkar, Circassian, Abazian and Nogai. Therefore, this beautiful republic (and also a popular budget ski resort) has a multinational flag. Blue means the Turkic peoples (Karachais and Nogais), green — Adygs (Circassians and Abaza) , and red — Slavs.

I praise every republic, but what can I do? Karelia is simply incomparable!

And the flag of Karelia, quite simple and similar to Dagestan, is based on the flag of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, repeating the order of colors.

The Northern Republic has a simple flag with a clear meaning: blue — the northern sky, green — virgin forests, white — prolonged snow. The same flag, as you remember, Bashkortostan wanted to accept, but Kami managed to do it earlier.

Komi — Finno-Ugrians, therefore there is also an "alternative" Scandinavian cross, but I don't like it. See for yourself.

Sunny Crimea has not the most inventive flag, but still not bad. The flag uses Pan-Slavic white, blue and red colors. The flag is not historical and was adopted only in 1992. The flag was adopted to show the Russian-speaking majority in Crimea.

By the way, this flag is very scandalous. Previously, Mari El had an uncomplicated, but good flag:

Then the flag was replaced with the current one, which caused a scandal among heralds and the people. As a result, the new flag was not registered in the official heraldic register and remains illegal.

Mordovia is unique in that it is a union of two peoples — Erzya and Moksha, who do not even understand each other's language, but consider themselves united — Mordvins. You probably noticed that the flag of Mordovia is very similar to the old Mari El (although Mari El was much more attractive, sorry Mordvins), and for good reason, because they are Finno-Ugric.

In the middle there is a Finno-Ugric solar sign (that is, a swastika, although it does not look close to the Nazi one) — it is a symbol of protection from evil spirits and prosperity

I think you have heard about Yakutia, at least that it is bigger than Argentina and the coldest place in the world (it seems to me that most represent Russia by what Yakutia is). And the flag of this republic is quite beautiful, and, in my opinion, reflects the spirit of this republic. 

.The only Christian republic of the Caucasus, delightful Ossetia has a suspiciously familiar flag, doesn't it? Yes, this is South Ossetia (logically)!

This flag is quite young and was copied from South Ossetia, which adopted it a year before, but has already become a national symbol of Ossetians. Again, the flag is uncomplicated, but good

If Tatarstan is a rich republic, then Tyva is the poorest and most criminal, although very colorful and interesting, and their flag reminds me of South Africa in the colors of Palau (interestingly, all three Buddhist republics — Buryatia, Tyva and Kalmykia have blue, yellow and white in the flag).

Although you know it as the former independent state of Tannu-Tuva (glory to the great empire!).

Udmurtia is another Finno-Ugric republic in Europe, so its flag has a familiar solar sign.

Khakassia has a pretty good flag. This thing is on the shaft.... Bingo, SOLAR SIGN! True, Khakass and denoting the universe, but he is already the fourth with him.

Khakassia previously had a different flag repeating the Russian tricolor, but the places of the stripes were changed (apparently to be more identical and to remove associations with Russia). Now the order of the stripes repeats Yugoslavia.

Once immersed in war, Chechnya is now one of the stable republics. Due to a rather complicated history (reminiscent of Afghanistan with a good ending), Chechnya had a frequent change of flags.

The current one, according to Kadyrov (this is the permanent head of Chechnya), took the flag of Tatarstan as a basis (which is strange, because the only thing that unites them is Islam).

The old flag of Chechnya was the flag of the Chechen opposition, which opposed the Islamist power of terrorists.

And this is not the whole Wikipedia text. I'm sorry, but how did the people who created this flag (or who already made sense of what they did) get confused

In short: gold is the color of the beauty of the Chuvash (hmm, and they know a lot), squiggles in the middle — the Tree of Life, oak. Not acorns come out of it, but solar signs (help), which mean the motto "Were, are, will be". Can I not tell you why the stars are rotated 45°, or does the tree have six branches?

Yeah, that.... bad. The flag of the Altai Krai can be said to be typical — there are quite a lot of similar flags. It was made on the basis of the RSFSR, but with the addition of the coat of arms of the Plain Altai (so we call it, not to be confused with the Republic) and the ear, because Altai is an agricultural region of Russia

A poor region with a not very successful flag. Yes, it is simple, but the colors....

By the way, the composition of the flag and colors are taken from the coat of arms of the Trans-Baikal oblast of the Russian Empire (for some reason it is translated, unlike the modern krai).

Distant Kamchatka is famous for its natural beauty, which is reflected on its flag — it depicts volcanoes (although I thought it was chums with feathers) — the pride of Kamchatka, framed by a national pattern. To be honest, this is a very good flag.

Sunny Kuban (the traditional name of Krasnodar krai), has a good flag, and even a historical one — the same flag (though without a coat of arms) had the Kuban People's Republic, which existed during the Civil War.

Krasnoyarsk also has one of the standard flags — there are quite a lot of red flags with a coat of arms in different variations. There's not much to say about him, except that this coat of arms (funny, a lion with a shovel) I was at the Yenisei governorate.

This is not the flag of the Dominican Republic (I once got into a curiosity because of this). The coat of arms is very cute — it's a smiling bear with a bowl of salt on its back (Aficionado wrote about it in strange flags, if you remember). The roots of the flag are unknown.

Yes. It's a Scandinavian cross. Moreover, this is a Scandinavian cross near a hot South Caucasian resort inhabited by Russians — Stavropol krai. Although for an official reason, the cross has a place on the flag. The name of Stavropol means "City of the Cross" in Greek.Also, as we know, the Caucasus is the border between Europe and Asia, the West and the East, and Stavropol is the "gateway to the Caucasus", the crossroads of civilizations.

This Far Eastern Krai has a simple flag. But I wonder if he reminds me of something...

I wanted to cover all regions, but God, it's impossible for a long time. Therefore, only Republics and Territories are covered, that is, 1/4 of all regions. I hope you were interested in reading this!