The double-headed eagle appears on Russia’s national emblem, a bird facing the East and the West simultaneously. A symbol of unity, it originated from the Byzantines, who used the double-headed eagle on their coins and the emperors’ clothes. The first official Russian seal bearing the two-headed animal appeared in 1497, more than two decades after Ivan III married Byzantine princess Sophia Palaiologina. The eagle was replaced by the hammer and the sickle during the Soviet era, but was reinstated in 1993.