page_title: Flag of Russia
section_title: Tsardom of Russia & Russian Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Flag of Russia / History / Tsardom of Russia & Russian Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Practice fight of the Dutch Fleet in the honour of Tzar Peter the Great, 1 Sept 1697 (fragment) Русский: Практические маневры голландской эскадры в честь Петра I, 1 сентября 1697 (фрагмент)
context_page_description: The flag of Russia is a tricolour flag consisting of three equal horizontal fields: white on the top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. The flag was first used as an ensign for Russian merchant ships and became official as the flag of the Tsardom of Russia in 1696.
  It remained in use until 1858, when the first official flag of the Russian Empire was decreed by Alexander II, which was a tricolor consisting of three horizontal fields: black on the top, yellow in the middle, and white on the bottom. A decree in 1896 made the original white, blue, and red tricolor the official flag of the Russian Empire until its eventual capitulation in 1917.
  Following the creation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian tricolor was abolished, and its usage was preserved by the White Movement and the Russian state during the Russian Civil War. During the Soviet Union's existence, it used the red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a golden bordered red star on top while the Russian SFSR, used a defaced variant with a vertical blue bar at the hoist.
context_section_description: In 1552, Russian regiments marched on the victorious assault of Kazan under Ivan the Terrible with the banner of the Most Gracious Savior. For the next century and a half, the banner of Ivan the Terrible accompanied the Russian army. Under Tsarina Sophia Alekseevna, it visited the Crimean campaigns, and under Peter the Great, the Azov campaigns and the Russo-Swedish War.
  In the Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible, there is an image of the banner of Ivan the Terrible in the Kazan campaign – a bifurcated white one with the image of the Savior and an eight-pointed cross above it. According to other sources, the banner was red instead of white. A copy of this banner, which has been restored many times, is still kept in the Kremlin Armoury.
  In 1612, the Nizhny Novgorod militia raised the banner of Dmitry Pozharsky, it was crimson in color with the image of the Lord Almighty on one side and the archangel Michael on the other.
  In 1669, the Polish painters Stanislav Loputsky and Ivan Mirovsky invited by Tsar Alexis of Russia, painted for the tsar's palace in Kolomenskoye "the hallmarks (that is, the emblems) of the sovereigns and all the universal states of this world." Then Loputsky drew "on the canvas, the coat of arms of the Moscow State and the arms of other neighboring countries, under every emblem of the planet under which they are." The coat of arms was a white rectangular banner with a "slope" and a wide red border, in the center of which was depicted a gold two-headed eagle and the emblems symbolizing the subject kingdoms, principalities and lands. In the inventory of the Kremlin Armoury, the coat of arms is described as the following: "In the circle there is a two-headed eagle wearing two crowns, and in his chest, the king on horseback pricks a serpent with his spear".
  On 6 August 1693, during Peter the Great's sailing in the White Sea with a detachment of warships built in Arkhangelsk, the so-called "Flag of the Tsar of Muscovy" was raised for the first time on the 12-gun yacht "Saint Peter". The flag was a cross-stitch of 4.6x4.9 meters sewn from cloth, composed of three equal-sized horizontal stripes of white, blue and red, with a golden double-headed eagle in the middle. The original of this oldest surviving Russian flag is located in the Central Naval Museum in Saint Petersburg.
  A 1695 flag book by Carel Allard describes three flags used by the tsar of Muscovy: the tricolour with the double-headed eagle bearing a shield on its breast and wearing a golden crown over both of its heads, the same tricolour with a blue saltire over it, and a cross flag showing red and white quartering with a blue cross over all. The cross flag is depicted upon the Construction of Kronschloss Medal, which commemorates the construction of Fort Kronschlot (Kronschloss) in Kronstadt by Peter the Great in 1704, the colors of the flag being determined according to the hatchings engraved.
  The armorial flag of Peter the Great was created in 1696. Made from red taffeta with a white border, the flag depicted a golden eagle hovering over the sea. On the chest of the eagle in the circle is the Savior, next to the Holy Spirit and the holy apostles Peter and Paul. The banner was likely made for the second Azov campaign.
  In 1693, Franz Timmerman received the order to build merchant ships in Arkhangelsk and trade with Europe. He was told to display the two-headed eagle spread with wings, with three crowns over it. On the chest of the eagle, a warrior on horseback was to be displayed with a spear, in a military harness. The same eagle was also to hold a sceptre with the right leg and an apple with a crest with the left. The same instructions were given to other traders.
  According to Dutch newspapers, in June 1694, a 44-gun frigate bought by Russia and built in Rotterdam stood in the Amsterdam roadstead under the white-blue-red flag.
  In 1696, at the mouth of the river Don, a Russian flotilla of armed rowboats blocked the supply of the Ottoman fortress of Azov. On the 1700 engraving by Adrian Shkhonebek, Taking the fortress of Azov. 1696, depicts 
caption: Practice battle on the river IJ in honor of Peter I, September 1697. Painting by Abraham Storck, 1700
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa", "Image ExifOffset": "46", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "182", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6965", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1195"}