Flag of the Republic of Karelia
regional flag of Russia
The flag of the Republic of Karelia (Russian: Флаг Республики Карелия, romanized: Flag Respubliki Kareliya, Karelian: Karjalan tazavallan valdivolline flagu, Veps: Karjalan Tazovaldkundan flag, Finnish: Karjalan tasavallan lippu) is the official state symbol of the Republic of Karelia. Adopted by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Karelia on February 16, 1993. The flag was designed by Alexander Ivanovich Kinnear.
The state flag of the Republic of Karelia is a rectangular panel with equal horizontal stripes: the upper stripe is red, the middle one is blue and the bottom green. The ratio of the width of the flag to its length is 2:3.
Pre-Soviet history
The first known official Karelian flag was created by Jonas Heiska in 1918 and was first used on 21 June 1918 during Saint Peter's Day celebrations in the Uhtua Republic. The flag had a blue background with 7 silver stars, representing the Ursa Major constellation (Otava) on the upper left corner.
It was used for a very short time before it was replaced with a flag created by Akseli Gallen-Kallela on 25 May 1920. Instead of a constellation, Kallela used a silver rainbow with 53 columns (1 for each of the Karelian communities of the Republic) to represent the Aurora Borealis. The flag used black, red and green colors.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Flag of the Republic of Karelia” is regional flag of Russia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Flag, Republic and Karelia, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flag of the Republic of Karelia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.