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The familiar Russian white-blue-red tricolour wasn’t always the symbol of our country… in the long history of the Russia, the flag changed several times; there was a black-white-yellow flag in the 19th century, and there was the familiar Soviet red banner. We offer you this infographic, which illustrates Russian flags from different historical periods. The Russian tricolour has a more than 300-year history. The Russian national flag appeared in the period between the 17th and 18th centuries, the era that marked the rise of Russia as a great power. The first white-blue-red banner flew over the first modern Russian warship, the frigate Oryol, in 1668, during the reign of Pyotr Veliki’s father Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Pyotr Veliki issued a decree on 20 January 1705 ordering all Russian merchant ships to hoist the white-blue-red flag. Thus, he was the “father” of the modern tricolour, as he sketched out the design, and decided upon the order of the horizontal stripes.
In 1858, Tsar Aleksandr Nikolayevich approved a flag “with black-yellow-white horizontal stripes, to be the Imperial banner, for use for public display on special occasions”. He issued a decree on 1 January 1865 naming the colours black, yellow, and white “the national colours of Russia”. In the USSR, for more than 70 years, the red flag was the national flag. An extraordinary session of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet on 22 August 1991 decided to reinstate the tricolour as the official Russian flag. A Presidential decree of 11 December 1993 formally approved regulations making the white-blue-red banner the State Flag of the Russian Federation. On 25 December 2000, President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law, “On the State Flag of the Russian Federation”. In accordance with the law, the State Flag of the Russian Federation is a rectangular banner of three equal horizontal stripes, white on top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. The flag’s ratio is laid down as 2:3, which means that the height is 2/3 of the width.
22 August 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/infografika/20130822/957708240.html
http://www.en.rian.ru/infographics/20130822/182902292/History-of-the-Russian-State-Flag.html
Voices from Russia 
11 September 2013. RIA-Novosti Infographics. Potential Participants in an Attack on Syria and their Deployed Combat Forces In-Theatre
Tags: Damascus, infographics, jingoism, mass media, Middle East, New World Order, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, sabre-rattling, Syrian Civil War, United States, USA, war and conflict
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After releasing information about the alleged large-scale use of chemical weapons near Damascus by the Syrian government, the West openly threatened a possible intervention in the conflict. Our infographic allows you to learn more about the composition of the military forces in the region, and the units available to a potential invasion force. The situation in Syria ratcheted up on 21 August, when the Western media reported the large-scale use of chemical weapons by Syrian government troops near Damascus. The opposition Syrian National Coalition stated that the attack killed approximately 1,300 people. After that, the West began to talk openly about a possible intervention in the Syrian conflict. For more information, click here.
29 August 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/infografika/20130829/959445869.html
http://www.en.rian.ru/infographics/20130829/183043168/Forces-Preparing-for-Possible-Strike-on-Syria.html