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The State Flag of the Russian Federation
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The State Flag of the Russian Federation is an official symbol of state power; embodies state sovereignty.
On December 11, 1993, President B.N. Yeltsin of the Russian Federation signed Decree "On the State Flag of the Russian Federation" and approved Statute of the State Flag of the Russian Federation.
The documents say this: "The State Flag of the Russian Federation shall be a right-angled piece of bunting of three equivalent horizontal stripes: upper, white; middle, blue; lower, red in color. The ratio of the flag's width to its length shall be 2:3."
In fact, the State Flag of the Russian Federation reproduces the merchant marine flag that existed in Russia since 1705 (from 1873 on, it was considered a state flag along with the Romanovs' black-gold-white dynastic flag).
The exact order of stripes on the flag is known since Peter I's times as well: the upper stripe is white, the middle blue, and the lower red. The arrangement of the stripes fitted in with the ancient concept of the world: the physical and carnal world is below, the heavenly world is above it, and the divine world is superimposed upon the two. In the 19th century, the stripes were made to symbolize the concord of the three East Slavic peoples: the Byelorussians, the Ukrainians, and the Russians.
In Old Russia, the colors of the flag were always symbolic of human qualities: white, nobility and frankness; blue, fidelity, integrity, irreproachability, chastity; red, courage, audacity, self-sacrifice, magnanimity and love.
The state flags of the Russian Federation are hoisted atop the buildings of the supreme bodies of state power and administration, embassies, trade missions, consulates of the Russian Federation abroad, are flown by ships in the high seas and in the territorial waters of foreign states, etc.
The State Flag of Russia is hung on a specialized flag-pole (mast) in front of a building or atop a building. Whenever raised vertically, the white stripe shall be on the left and the red stripe on the right.
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