Coat of arms of Russia

It derives from the earlier coat of arms of the Russian Empire. Though modified more than once since the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505), the current coat of arms is directly derived from its medieval original, with the double-headed eagle having Byzantine and earlier antecedents. The general tincture corresponds to the fifteenth-century standard.

Description and usage

The two main elements of Russian state symbols (the two-headed eagle and Saint George slaying the dragon) predate Peter the Great. According to the Kremlin's website:

«...четырёхугольный, с закруглёнными нижними углами, заострённый в оконечности красный геральдический щит с золотым двуглавым орлом, поднявшим вверх распущенные крылья. Орел увенчан двумя малыми коронами и — над ними — одной большой короной, соединенными лентой. В правой лапе орла — скипетр, в левой — держава. На груди орла, в красном щите, — серебряный всадник в синем плаще на серебряном коне, поражающий серебряным копьём черного опрокинутого навзничь и попранного конём дракона.»

Which is translated as:

"… a gold two-headed eagle with raised extended wings set against a four-cornered red heraldic shield with rounded lower corners. Two small crowns top the eagle's heads, with one large crown above them. The three crowns are linked by a ribbon. The eagle holds a sceptre in its right claw and an orb in its left claw. The eagle bears a red shield on its breast depicting a silver horseman in a blue cape, mounted upon a silver horse and slaying a black dragon with a silver spear."

The current coat of arms was designed by artist Yevgeny Ukhnalyov; it was adopted on 30 November 1993 by a presidential decree, and then by a federal law signed by President Vladimir Putin on December 20, 2000.

Today, the imperial crowns on each head stand for the unity and sovereignty of Russia, both as a whole and in its constituent republics and regions. The orb and scepter grasped in the eagle's talons are traditional heraldic symbols of sovereign power and authority. Of note is that the scepter shows the Droste effect, as it is topped by a miniature image of the coat-of-arms itself. They have been retained in the modern Russian arms despite the fact that the Russian Federation is not a monarchy, which led to objections by the Communists even though both the blue ribbon and the collar of the Order of St. Andrew (which in the imperial arms supported the three crowns and surrounded the central shield) have been removed from the current coat of arms.

It appears on the federal buildings and is on the cover of the national passport.

The standard of the president of Russia is a squared Russian tricolour defaced with the coat of arms of Russia, the banner of the Russian Armed Forces also has the coat of arms centered on the obverse side. Some state awards of Russia are also designed based on the coat of arms, including the State Prize. Russian ruble coins depict the coat of arms on the obverse side since 2016.

Differences between 1993 and 2000 descriptions

The description of the coat of arms of Russia in the Regulation of the same name, approved by the Decree of the President of Russia of November 30, 1993, No. 2050 "On the State Emblem of the Russian Federation," differs from the description of the coat of arms of Russia in the Federal Constitutional Law No. 2 of December 25, 2000 "On the State Emblem of the Russian Federation". However, both regulatory legal acts contain the same drawing of the state emblem by artist Yevgeny Ukhnalyov in their appendices.

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Historical versions

The heraldic device of Russia has gone through three major periods in its history, undergoing major changes in the transitions between the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. The use of the double-headed eagle as a Russian coat of arms goes back to the 15th century. With the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Grand Dukes of Muscovy came to see themselves as the successors of the Byzantine heritage, a notion reinforced by the marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Paleologue (hence the expression "Third Rome" for Moscow and, by extension, for the whole of Imperial Russia). Ivan adopted the golden Byzantine double-headed eagle in his seal, first documented in 1472, marking his direct claim to the Roman imperial heritage and posing as a sovereign equal and rival to the Holy Roman Empire. In 1497, it was stamped on a charter of share and allotment of independent princes' possessions. At about the same time, the image of a gilt, double-headed eagle on a red background appeared on the walls of the Palace of Facets in the Moscow Kremlin.

The other main Russian coat of arms, the image of St George slaying the dragon, is contemporaneous. In its first form, as a rider armed with a spear, it is found in the seal of Vasili I of Moscow in 1390. At the time of Ivan III, the dragon was added, but the final association with Saint George was not made until 1730, when it was described as such in an Imperial decree. Eventually, St George became the patron saint of Moscow (and, by extension, of Russia).

After the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV, the two coats are found combined, with the eagle bearing an escutcheon depicting St George on the breast. With the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1589, a patriarchal cross was added for a time between the heads of the eagle.

1721–1917: Russian Empire

The coat of arms of the Russian Empire was the primary state emblem of the Russian monarchy from the proclamation of the empire in 1721 until the overthrow of the House of Romanov during the February Revolution of 1917.

Following reforms enacted by Emperor Alexander II in 1857, the emblem was officially divided into three categories: the Greater, Middle, and Lesser coats of arms. At the center of each version stood a black double-headed eagle upon a golden shield, bearing on its chest an escutcheon of Moscow with the equestrian figure of Saint George slaying a dragon. The system received its final revisions under Emperor Alexander III in 1882–1883, based on drawings executed by academician Adolf Charlemagne.

1918–93: Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

The coat of arms of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was adopted on 10 July 1918 by the government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Soviet Union), and modified several times afterwards. It shows wheat as the symbol of agriculture, a rising sun for the future of the Russian nation, the red star (the RSFSR was the last Soviet Republic to include the star in its state emblem, in 1978) as well as the hammer and sickle for the victory of Communism and the "world-wide socialist community of states".

The Soviet Union state motto ("Workers of the world, unite!") in Russian ('Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!' — Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes!) is also a part of the coat of arms.

The acronym of the RSFSR is shown above the hammer and sickle, and reads 'PCФCP', for "Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика" (lit. 'Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic').

Similar emblems were used by the Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republics (ASSR) within the Russian SFSR; the main differences were generally the use of the republic's acronym and the presence of the motto in the language(s) of the titular nations (with the exception of the state emblem of the Dagestan ASSR, which had the motto in eleven languages as there is no single Dagestani language).

The Soviet Union as a whole adopted its emblem in 1923, which remained in use until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although it is technically an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it does not follow traditional heraldic rules, in Russian it is called герб (gerb), the word used for a traditional coat of arms. It was the first state insignia created in the style known as socialist heraldry, a style also seen in e.g. the Chinese national emblem.

The emblem shows the Soviet emblems of the Hammer and Sickle and the Red Star over a globe, in the center of a wreath wrapped in ribbons emblazoned with the communist motto ("Workers of the world, unite!") in the official languages of the Soviet republics with the Russian inscription in the centre, in the reverse order they were mentioned in the Soviet Constitution. Each Soviet Republic (SSR) and Autonomous Soviet Republic (ASSR) had its own coat of arms, largely inspired by the state emblem of the Union.

Four versions were used: 6 ribbons were used in 1923, which were written on in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani; 11 ribbons with the addition of Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh, Kyrgyz; 16 with the addition of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, and Finnish. Finally, the inscriptions in Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh and Kyrgyz were updated to reflect their transition from the Latin to the Cyrillic script. The final version of the emblem was adopted in 1956 with the removal of the Finnish inscription from the insignia, reflecting the 1956 transformation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR into the Karelian ASSR.

In 1992, the inscription was changed from RSFSR ('РСФСР') to the Russian Federation ('Российская Федерация') in connection with the change of the name of the state. In 1993, president Boris Yeltsin signed a decree to replace the Communist design by the present coat of arms.