Flag of Russia - Variant Versions

Variant Versions

A variant of the flag was authorized for private use by Tsar Nicholas II before World War I, adding the large State eagle on a yellow field (Imperial Standard) in a canton in the top left-hand corner. This variant was never made the official state flag.

When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, the tricolour design was discarded, and a definitive new flag of the SFSR (one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union) was introduced in 1954 (see flag of Russian SFSR), and this remained the republic's flag until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. All of the Soviet Republics' flags were created by introducing a small, but noticeable change, to the flag of the Soviet Union. In this case, the change was an introduction of the left-hand blue band. The previous Soviet design was different, a plain red flag with different variants of the "RSFSR" abbreviation in the canton.

The tricolour was used by the anti-Communist forces during the Civil War called the White movement. It was continued to be used by White emigres in various countries as the Russian flag, as they did not see the Bolshevik government in Moscow as legitimate. The tricolour was associated both in Soviet Russia as well as the Russian White emigre communities as symbolising a traditional tsarist Orthodox Russia. This flag as well as the Naval Ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy was used by anti-Communist Russian troups under German command during the Second World War. Both flags can be seen inside a few Orthodox churches in the West established by these Russian communities.

The original flag of 1896 (rather than the black-yellow-white colour combination) was re-adopted by Russia on 22 August 1991. The readoption date is celebrated yearly as the national flag day.

The president of Russia uses a Presidential Standard (Russian: Штандарт Президента), which is officially defined as the tricolour with the Coat of Arms (at this case the two-headed eagle is depicted without the shield) in the middle.